Rachel Brandenburg is currently an Associate Vice President at The Cohen Group (TCG), where she focuses on defense and Middle East work. She joined TCG after over a decade of national security and foreign policy work at the State Department, the Department of Defense, in the US House of Representatives, and in the think tank community.

Prior to joining The Cohen Group, Rachel served as Senior Policy Advisor to Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and was responsible for legislative and policy work related to the House Armed Services Committee, national security and defense, foreign policy, election security, and other topics. Before serving on Capitol Hill, Rachel worked at the Atlantic Council as the Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Middle East Security Initiative. From 2014 to 2018, she served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Middle East policy, where she initially focused on Iraq and the counter-ISIS campaign as director of the Iraq team, and then on bilateral defense relationships with Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan as director of the Levant team. Rachel had previously worked at the US Institute of Peace, where she managed programs related to Syria, Libya, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at the State Department, where she served in the Middle East Partnership Inititiative office and the Office of Middle East Transitions, and was responsible for coordinating US government assistance to Tunisia in 2011.

Rachel was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in Israel and a Critical Language Scholarship in Jordan. She holds a Master’s degree from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, and a Bachelor’s degree from Tufts University. While at Tufts, Rachel was active with the IGL as an EPIIC student (2002-2003) and a founding member of NIMEP (the New Initiative for Middle East Peace).