Sophie Rutenbar is a nonresident fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She also currently works as a visiting scholar with the Prevention and Peacebuilding Program of the New York University Center for International Cooperation.

Rutenbar was previously the mission planning officer for the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. Based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she worked in the front office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General conducting strategic planning for the United Nations in Haiti. Before that, she served as political affairs officer with the policy planning team of the United Nations Department of Peace Operations. In that role, she worked extensively on U.N. peacekeeping and peace and security reform processes, including supporting the Action for Peacekeeping Initiative (2018-present), the secretary-general’s Peace and Security Restructuring (2017-18) and the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (2015). Rutenbar also helped lead efforts to enhance U.N. peace operations’ capacity to respond to the evolving technology landscape and strengthen U.N. efforts to engage with non-state armed groups.

Her other experience at the U.N. has included working with the United Nations Department of Field Support, United Nations Mission in South Sudan, and the U.N. Secretary-General’s high-level panel on the global response to future health crises. She joined the United Nations in 2013 as the first U.S.-sponsored associate expert/junior professional officer in the U.N. Secretariat, working with the policy planning team for the Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support.