Viola Gienger

Viola Gienger lived and worked for seven years in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans, including four years in Bosnia, first managing training programs and consulting for independent media in transition, and then as a freelance journalist. She has reported from more than 30 countries, including in the Middle East and Asia, and has appeared as a guest commentator and moderator in television, radio, and podcasts.

Viola is Washington Editor for Just Security, an online forum on national and international security law and policy based at New York University Law School. She previously served as senior editor/writer at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, which focuses on preventing, managing and resolving violent conflict. Her work there included research and program strategy work on the Ukraine/Russia crisis. Prior to that, she was an editor and reporter at Bloomberg News for nine years, covering the State Department and the Pentagon for five years. She previously worked in newspapers and news agencies from Florida to the United Kingdom.

Her freelance work includes serving as guest national security editor at The Cipher Brief, and her writing has been published in Ozy, the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert, the Chicago Tribune, Newhouse’s Religion News Service, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Transitions Online and Al-Monitor.