Avril D. Haines is currently a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and a Lecturer in Law at Columbia University Law School. She served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and served as the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council. Before joining the NSC, she led the Treaty office at the Department of State, was the Deputy Chief Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, worked for The Hague Conference on Private International Law, and served as a law clerk for Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Avril received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Chicago, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and founded and ran a bookstore café for five years while engaged in community service in Baltimore.