Kamissa Camara is a Senior Program Officer for West and Central Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy. She is also a West Africa instructor at the Foreign Service Institute where she trains U.S. diplomats before their deployment to West Africa.

Her expertise includes democracy promotion, civil-military dialogue, rebel military integration, and electoral management in francophone sub-Saharan Africa.

Kamissa’s articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, Aljazeera America, Good Governance Africa, World Politics Review, African Arguments and The Broker Online among others. She is a regular guest on France24 and Voice of America French and English TV and radio programs.

She holds an M.A. in International Development and a B.A. in International Relations from France. She is currently pursuing an M.A in Political Management at George Washington University. Finally, Kamissa is a native French and English speaker and sometimes forgets she also speaks German.

Fun-fact: Kamissa is probably the biggest admirer of the Queen of Sheba and in her spare time, reads all books on and about her. “The Queen of Sheba was beautiful and fierce,” she says. “She is the Queen of Interruptors.”