Dr. Aleksandra Dier is a counter-terrorism expert at the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED).

Over the past decade, Aleksandra has worked for the United Nations in the areas of conflict prevention and mediation, peacekeeping, sanctions, and counter-terrorism. She served in UN field missions in Afghanistan and Burundi, and was involved in the planning of the peacekeeping mission in Mali. She was also the special assistant to the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Conflict Prevention.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Aleksandra was a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich and a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, where her work focused on European security policy and crisis management in Africa. She received her M.Phil and Ph.D. from the University of Oxford.

Fun fact: Aleksandra likes to take matters into her own hands. When her smartphone was stolen during a trip to London, she tracked down the thief using the phone’s GPS signal, confronted him, and got her device back. (She doesn’t recommend that you try this at home.)