Laura Updegrove

Laura Updegrove serves as Senator Merkley's Senior Foreign Policy Adviser leading his work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and Appropriations subcommittee for State and Foreign Operations.

Laura joined the Senator's team after serving eight years in the Obama administration, most recently as the Deputy Director of a Middle East policy team and the Senior Israel Director at the Department of Defense. Prior to her time at DoD Laura served as the Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President at the White House and as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State at the Department of State.

Before joining the State Department Laura worked on the National Security Agency Review Team of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team and as a Field Organizer for the 2008 Obama for America Presidential Campaign. She went to school at the University of California at Santa Barbara and studied International Relations.