LtCol Lauren Serrano (formerly Reisinger) is a native of San Francisco, CA. She commissioned in June 2009 through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and graduated from Drexel University with a Major in Middle Eastern Studies and dual Minors in Arabic and World Politics. She studied abroad at the British Institute in Cairo, Egypt and University of Jordan in Amman.
LtCol Serrano’s military occupational specialties (MOS) include: Intelligence Officer (0202), Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Officer (0204), Middle Eastern Foreign Area Officer (8244), Operational Planner (0505), and Intelligence Weapons and Tactics Instructor (0277).
LtCol Serrano’s command assignments include: Platoon Commander & CI/HUMINT Detachment OIC, 3d Intelligence Battalion, Okinawa, Japan (2010-14); and, Company B Commander at the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion (MCSB), National Security Agency (NSA), Fort Meade, MD (2019-20).
LtCol Serrano’s combat deployments include a 12-month (2012-13) individual augmentation to the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq where she first served as the Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff and then in the Defense Attaché Office. She spent part of the deployment in Erbil, Iraq providing security assistance to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
LtCol Serrano’s staff assignments include: Intelligence Fusion Officer, I Marine Expeditionary Force G-2, Camp Pendleton, CA (2017-19); Battalion Operations Officer, MCSB, NSA (2021); Aide-De-Camp to the Chief of Naval Operations, Pentagon (2020-22); Operational Planner, 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, Miramar, CA (2023-25); and Strategy & Plans Deputy G-5, Marine Corps Installations Pacific, Okinawa, Japan (2025-26).
In addition to MOS producing schools, LtCol Serrano is a graduate of National Intelligence University’s masters program, Junior Officer’s Strategic Intelligence Program (JOSIP), Expeditionary Warfare School, Command and Staff College, and the School of Advanced Warfighting. Her JOSIP fellowship (2014-17) included assignments to the Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation HQ, Washington District of Colombia.
LtCol Serrano is passionate about writing, having received the 2014 Chase Writing Award and the 2020 Hogaboom Leadership Writing Award from the Marine Corps Association, the 2015 LtCol Kuszewski NIU Writing Award for the best Master’s Thesis on the Operations-Intelligence Relationship, and the 2022 second-place Leadership Writing Award from Naval Institute Proceedings. Her work has been published in the Marine Corps Gazette, Small Wars Journal, Naval Institute Proceedings, War Horse, 12 Geniuses Podcast, and the Foreign Area Officer Association Journal.