Sarah Yerkes is a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic and security developments, as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa. She has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow and has taught in the security studies program at Georgetown University and at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Yerkes is a former member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, where she focused on North Africa. Previously, she was a foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s office of Israel and Palestinian affairs. Yerkes also served as a geopolitical research analyst for the Pentagon’s joint staff strategic plans and policy directorate, advising the Joint Staff leadership on foreign policy and national security issues.