Vanessa Booth is a Romanian-American born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Recently, she earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Honors College with double minors in public policy and journalism & media studies. During her role as a policy researcher for Brookings Mountain West, an outpost of the Brookings Institution, Vanessa co-authored various data hub fact sheets on a number of policy issues in the Mountain West Region. Vanessa has also worked for the Department of Defense and U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence creating collateral to raise awareness about national security threats. Vanessa is a Public Policy International Affairs Fellow and Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Being an avid data-visualization enthusiast, Vanessa plans to obtain a career as a policy analyst upon graduation.