Sophie Arts is a program assistant supporting The German Marshall Fund of the United States' (GMF) security and defense policy work in Washington DC. In that role, she is responsible for managing and coordinating GMF’s security and defense programming and Washington-based convening. She also assists the office of the Executive Vice President Derek Chollet. Originally from Germany, she holds a Master’s degree in American Studies with a concentration in U.S. Foreign Policy and Political Communication from Humboldt University in Berlin, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in English and Modern History from the University of Freiburg. As part of her program, she spent two years studying at the University of Virginia and at Connecticut College. Prior to joining GMF’s Washington office, Arts worked as research assistant at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, where she helped produce Fred Kempe’s Inflection Points, and as a trainee in GMF’s Brussels Office, where she assisted with the organization of GMF’s flagship conference Brussels Forum.  She has a background in political journalism, writing for Spiegel Online International, and preparing news briefs for the European Commission as part of her work for the media-monitoring agency Kantar Media.