Allison McManus is a senior director for the National Security and International Policy department at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she was the managing director at the Freedom Initiative, where she advocated for political prisoners in the Middle East and North Africa. She also served as the research director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy from 2014 to 2019. She holds a Master of Arts in global and international studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University. McManus is trained in trauma-sensitive approaches to yoga, meditation, and breathwork, and leads weekly classes at Yoga District in Washington, D.C.