Samantha Vinograd (born February 19, 1983)[1] is an American foreign policy commentator who serves as National Security Analyst at CNN.
Vinograd was born to a Jewish family in Connecticut. Her parents are Barbara (née Lefkowitz) and Serge G. Vinograd,[2] and her father is a Holocaust survivor.[3] She has three siblings, Ariane, Cassandra, and Benjamin. Vinograd is a 2001 graduate of the Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut.[4] She graduated with a B.A. in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University.[5] After graduation, she worked for the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Baghdad and then in various positions for the administration of Barack Obama where she worked on the National Security Council as the Director for Iraq, as the Director for International Economics, and as the Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor.[5] In 2013, she went to work for Goldman Sachs focusing on public-private sector partnerships.[5]