Rita Barbosa Lobo is a Programme Assistant in the Europe in the World Programme at the European Policy Centre. Before joining the EPC, she worked at United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) for the Migration Cluster. Prior to that, she worked as a legal trainee for Finabel, a military think tank focusing on current EU and NATO military developments and relations, and as a intern for the Institute for Politics and Society researching European Affairs.

Her primary research interests include security and defence, the EU’s relations with China and Russia, and the role of NATO.

She holds a LLM in European Union Law from the University of Amsterdam. Her thesis focused on the CFSP and looking at the constitutional complexity of the EU treaties with the case study of the illegal annexation of Crimea. Prior to this she studied at the University of Kent where she obtained her LLB.