Interning at LaSER let me do real defense research at a moment when the Baltics are living the questions the rest of the world is only starting to ask. I spent my weeks building AI geospatial and modeling tools to help make sense of the region’s security challenges – the rare kind of work where what you do on a screen connects to something that matters on the ground. As a Latvian American, contributing to the security of the region my family comes from meant a lot. Kadri’s field trips made it bigger: moving through Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius in a few short weeks, you feel both how distinct each city is and how much they share. I left with a much deeper sense of why this region matters and why so many people are fighting to protect it.