Tom graduated from the University of Iowa in 2013 with degrees in Political Science, International Studies, and Russian. At Iowa, he was a Collegiate Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2018, he received a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was President of the National Security Law Association. Before law school, he worked for two years as an analyst at C4ADS, where his work was briefed in front of senior audiences at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury, in addition to private sector audiences. He speaks Russian, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. He currently lives in Washington DC, where he is the Chief of Analysis at C4ADS.