Dr. Heljä Ossa is a Research Fellow at LSE Ideas, working on the non-nuclear deterrence project funded by the Carnegie Endowment Corporation of New York, led by the Conflict and Civicness Research Group. Her areas of expertise include European security and defence policy, NATO, transatlantic relations, and Finnish foreign policy.

Dr. Ossa holds a Ph.D. in Military Sciences from the Finnish National Defence University, with her dissertation focusing on European strategic autonomy from the U.S. perspective.

Prior to joining LSE, she worked as a Researcher at the Finnish National Defence University, where she did research on transatlantic relations and co-authored the book NATO’s Burden-Sharing Disputes: Past, Present and Future Prospects(Palgrave, 2022). In 2024 she co-authored a book on how Western allies perceive Finland as a security actor.

She appears regularly in Finnish and English-speaking media, commenting on European security and defence issues. In 2024, she was invited by the President of Finland to join the Kultaranta Talks, an annual event gathering people from various sectors of society to discuss international affairs. Dr. Ossa serves as the Managing Editor of The Ulkopolitist, an online media outlet focused on international relations and foreign policy.