Special Agent, Nelson Layfield (FBI), along with Stanford University student Piper Holland break down common misperceptions about what it means to serve one’s country.
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ABOUT THE FELLOW & MENTEE
Nelson E. Layfield, national security affairs fellow for the academic year 2024–25 at the Hoover Institution, is a special agent representing the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since 2004, Layfield has conducted counterespionage and counterintelligence investigations, as well as public corruption and civil rights violations. He currently serves on the Counterintelligence Task Force, where he works to increase awareness and thwart instances of transnational repression and malign foreign influence.
Piper Holland is a senior at Stanford University where she is majoring in International Relations. While at Stanford she studied abroad in Cape Town focusing on transitional justice and development in the Global South, and Berlin where she focused on international organizations including the EU, UN, and ICC. Her senior year she became the Lead Ambassador for all of Stanford’s Bing Overseas Study Programs. Piper minored in Film and Media Studies and has produced several mini-documentaries focused on international issues in Hawaii, Estonia, and Peru. She has lived, traveled, and/or studied in over 40 countries and speaks Spanish. She is a member of the Stanford Ski Team and Pickleball team and works as a volunteer for Conservation Ambassadors (wild animal sanctuary focused on education), Habla (teaching English to Stanford Spanish-speaking field workers), and Kids with Dreams (supporting individuals with special needs). Piper aspires to become a career foreign service officer in the State Department with a dream of becoming the US Ambassador to the UN or US Representative to another of the major international organizations.
