Becca Arbacher is a member of the inaugural cohort of the Andrew Carnegie AI-Nuclear Policy Accelerator. 

Becca Arbacher is on a year-long detail leading the Western Europe and Balkans Office within Joint Staff’s Europe/NATO/Russia directorate. She manages the team of country desks for 17 European countries, strengthening the U.S.’ bilateral relationships in support of American and European security.

Previously, she worked nuclear strategy and policy for the Joint Staff J5. She was the Joint Staff lead for NATO strategic issues and served as the United States’ representative to NATO’s working-level nuclear advisory committee. Her portfolio focused on Europe/NATO/Russia; she also supported NPR implementation, nuclear employment guidance, plans reviews, and strategic posture adaptations. She also led Joint Staff subsea and seabed efforts.

Becca began her career as a data scientist embedded with defense/intelligence organizations, working first on insider threat issues before joining the Joint Staff J8 as a Lead Campaign Analyst. In her role with the J8, Becca developed stochastic models of campaign plans and provided quantitative and strategic assessments of joint, partner, and adversary plans and capabilities.

Becca studied physics and political science at Columbia University, graduating with honors. She has conducted physics research in labs at NASA, Columbia, and Harvard and spoken at various academic conferences about her work on magnetospheres, the solar wind, and plasma behavior. In her spare time, she loves backpacking, cycling, and playing ultimate Frisbee.