Lauren Spink

Guest Author

Lauren Spink is a Senior Advisor on Research at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). She implements innovative, strategic, and cross-country research projects for the organization. She also drafts CIVIC research policy and provides high-level research support across CIVIC’s country and thematic programming, including on design of research methodologies, editing research publications, conducting field research, and training staff on research practices.

Articles by this author:

An infantry recruit of the 28th Seperate Mechanized Brigade runs from a simulated drone attack during a basic training course at an undislosed location in eastern Ukraine on October 11, 2025. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)

Drones are Changing How Wars Harm Civilians

Nov. 4, 2025 Lauren Spink

Behind what appears to be a makeshift fence, a woman carries a sack of grain on her head as she stops to buy some local pastries at a roadside stall in Wau, South Sudan, on February 1, 2020. About 13,000 civilians were sheltered there under UN protection adjacent to the field office of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), just outside Wau town. They had fled massacres and burnings of villages during a ruinous six-year conflict between forces loyal to the government of South Sudan President Salva Kiir and those of his political rival, former Vice President Riek Machar. A string of failed truces and hollow promises has spawned distrust in the two rival leaders now facing intense pressure to uphold a permanent peace agreement. (Photo by TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images)

In South Sudan, Keep UN Peacekeepers Focused on Evolving Risks for Civilians

Dec. 17, 2021 Lauren Spink