Blake Narendra

Blake Narendra is entering his second year in the office of Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR). A graduate of Colorado College, Blake worked on two presidential campaigns in 2007-2008 before moving to Washington D.C. He was an associate in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, worked as a Special Assistant at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) during Senate consideration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Following graduate studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, he worked as a contractor to the U.S. Air Force in its arms control branch, as a fellow at the Ploughshares Fund and as a special advisor in the U.S. State Department Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance (AVC). He most recently was a press officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In his first year in the Senate, he led two bipartisan resolutions which successfully passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – on a civilian nuclear cooperation (123) agreement with Saudi Arabia and another taking stock of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on its “golden birthday” – in addition to other legislative initiatives.