Erica Barbarossa is the Research Lead for the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism. Prior to this position, Erica worked as a Graduate Research Assistant for CTEC’s online extremism project, which led to her interest in online extremism and radicalization. Other interests include accelerationism, right-wing terrorism, and Russian area studies. Before her involvement with the Middlebury Institute, Erica served as a William J. Fulbright English Teaching Assistant finalist in the Russian Federation. Erica has master’s degrees in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute and in International Relations – Global Security, Nuclear Politics, and WMD Proliferation from Moscow State Institute of International Studies (MGIMO). She received her bachelor’s in Russian and Slavic Studies from New York University.