Keely Bakken

Foreign Affairs Officer, U.S. Department of State

Keely Bakken is a Foreign Affairs Officer in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) focused on Turkey. She previously served as a Supervisory Policy Analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where her work spanned Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, and Ukraine. Prior to joining the federal government, she was responsible for designing foreign language proficiency testing at American Councils for International Education. She holds a Master of Arts in Central Eurasian Studies and a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington, where she also received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Spanish. She was the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Russia and a Boren Fellowship to Turkey, which supported her research on the intersection of identity, nationalism, and foreign policy.