Leslie Hough

Leslie Hough began her career working for the Estonian Embassy in Washington, DC and the Estonian Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Department in Tallinn in the late 1990s as part of the Columbia University Eesti Public Service Fellowship. Being on the ground as Estonia was fighting to shed its Soviet past and establish its path into EU and NATO membership, set her on an academic and professional trajectory into the post-Soviet space. She has worked as a speechwriter in the Georgian Parliament, as a long-term election observer in Albania, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Georgia, and as a multi-methods research consultant to the UNDP, UN Women, and OSCE in Georgia, Tajikistan, Kosovo, and Vienna. While a PhD candidate, she received grants to conduct research in the Trans-Volga republics of the Russian Federation and for the US Embassies in Georgia and Tajikistan. More recently, while working for the Refugee, Asylum and International Operations (RAIO) Directorate of DHS, she developed and presented in-depth country-conditions reports, query responses, and technical trainings, primarily on Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Leslie is currently working on a book project drawing on her decade of experience in humanitarian protection at RAIO across four very different administrations. Her responsibilities at RAIO ranged from interviewing moms and kids at detention facilities along the border, conducting sensitive screenings with suspected victims of trafficking, and reuniting unaccompanied minors with family members, to heading the RAIO Research Unit’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, welcoming Afghan evacuees at the Philadelphia airport after the fall of Kabul, and leading teams around the world to interview refugees in Malaysia, Jordan, Mauritania, Kenya, Pakistan, and Nigeria. 

She holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia, an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and an MA and MPhil en route to a PhD in Political Science at Yale (ABD) under the advisement of James C. Scott. In her spare time, she maintains a plot of native plants, organizes events, and teaches yoga in her community garden, practices Butoh and other forms of experimental dance, and helps with homeless outreach at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.