By: Cassandra Zavislak
Alissa Indeck is a Gender and Global Security Program Assistant at WIIS. Alissa has always
had a passion for learning languages and travelling, especially with her family. This interest
began to develop into her career choice in high school when she took AP World History and
Global Politics classes, which introduced her to international affairs. Once she visited
Washington DC for the first time, she knew that she wanted to live here. Located in DC, the
Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University was a perfect fit for
her undergraduate degree. Alissa has since graduated from the Elliott School in May of 2020,
where she majored in international affairs with a concentration in security policy with a music
minor in classical voice.
In the Fall of 2021, she will begin her Master’s degree at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies, where she will concentrate in conflict management, with a regional focus
on Africa and a language capability of French. Alissa wants to pursue feminist security studies
to promote women’s voices in the security space. While in graduate school, Alissa is looking to
decide where she can do this gender and security work most effectively. After graduate school,
she wants to work in gender and security while studying for the foreign service exam, with the
goal of becoming a foreign service officer.
Alissa’s past work has included time as a biosecurity threat intern at the National Consortium for
the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), where she researched vaccine
hesitancy in Columbia and the Dominican Republic. She also worked at the Eurasia Center with
the Uplifting Africa Program where she published an article on the African Union’s policy
strategy for protecting refugees and internally displaced persons, particularly women and
children. Alissa has also worked with the Project on Middle East Democracy, where she worked
on French translation, research projects, and news updates from Tunisia.
At WIIS, Alissa is currently working on several projects with other team members. She is editing
“Profiles of Women in International Security,” a video compilation project by Meredith Sarkees,
with fellow Program Assistant Cassandra Zavislak. She is also preparing a gender and arms
control event with Kayla McGill, working on communications management with Roksana
Verahrami, and researching masculinities and terrorism with Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat.
Outside of her work life, Alissa loves to travel with her family. Her favorite travel memory so far
has been a hiking and biking trip through Switzerland and the Bavarian region of Germany. The
beautiful scenery of Jungfrau Joch in Switzerland stood out to her as one of the most
memorable locations of the trip. At home in DC, Alissa has two cats, one long-haired black cat
named Opal and a new Bengal kitten named Azizi. Together they enjoy watching Netflix shows
such as Game of Thrones, New Girl, Bridgerton, Schitts Creek, and The Crown.