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After serving in Congress for 26 years, Mac Thornberry continues to work at the intersection of technology and national security.  He serves various companies and non-profit organizations as a board member and advisor.   

A former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he was also a member of the House Intelligence Committee for more than a decade. The Almanac of American Politics 2020 called Mac “one of Congress’ brainiest and most thoughtful members on national and domestic security issues.”   Widely respected across the political spectrum as an innovator and a strategic thinker, Mac has led on strategic nuclear issues, homeland security, cyber and space issues, as well as enhancing innovation and improving acquisition to benefit the men and women who serve and the nation.

In December 2021, Mac received the Peace Through Strength Award from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.  He is also the recipient of Distinguished Service Medals from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, as well as awards and recognitions from a number of other organizations.  On a bipartisan basis, Congress named the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act for him.

Prior to his election to Congress, Mac served in the State Department during the Reagan Administration, as staff on Capitol Hill, and practiced law. Raised on the family ranch in Donley County, Texas, Mac graduated from Texas Tech University and received a law degree from the University of Texas. He and his wife, Sally, have two children.

Rita Barbosa Lobo is a program assistant for the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF, where she works with the head of European operations.

In her studies, Barbosa Lobo focused on European Union law and common law, graduating from the University of Kent with a bachelor of laws and from the University of Amsterdam with a master of laws. Prior to joining ASD, she was a Schuman trainee at the European Parliamentary Research Service, External Policies Unit. Before that she was a program assistant at the European Policy Centre, Europe in the World program, and a research fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies. Her interests lie in European foreign policy.

Sharinee L. Jagtiani is a senior officer for AI and democracy at GMF Tech. Her work centers on emerging technologies and their impact on democratic processes, with a particular focus on AI and digital infrastructure. Jagtiani plays a key role in GMF Tech’s work on piloting content authenticity technologies for the 2024 election cycle and examining China’s technology influence in Europe.

Previously, Jagtiani worked at the Hasso Platner Institute for Digital Engineering at the University of Potsdam, where she served as a postdoctoral fellow producing scholarship and policy recommendations on global technology governance, cloud computing, and digital public infrastructure. She has a PhD in international relations from the University of Oxford, where her thesis examined rising powers and their claims to great power status, with a focus on India.

Through her ten years of experience working in academia and think tanks, including with the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and Berlin, Sharinee has published extensively on Asia-Pacific security, European security, and the US-China strategic rivalry.

Amandine Gnanguênon is a GMF Risk and Strategy nonresident fellow and a senior fellow and head of the Geopolitics and Geoeconomics Program at the Africa Policy Research Institute. She is also an associate research fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies.

Before joining APRI, Gnanguênon was an independent adviser to governments, think tanks, German foundations, African regional organizations, the EU, and the UN. She also worked at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the Institute of Security Studies in Dakar. She established and led the sub-Saharan Africa program at the Institute of Strategic Research at École Militaire in Paris.

Gnanguênon’s research and analysis has been published on academic, policy, and media platforms. Her areas of focus include regional integration, peace and security, governance, digitalization, climate-related issues, and EU-Africa cooperation.

Brussels Forum Session: Euro-Atlantic Security Outside the Box: High Ambitions, Different Formats

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett represents communities from Austin in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves as Ranking Member of the Health Subcommittee on the House Ways & Means Committee. Doggett also serves on the Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the House Budget Committee.

Aaron Chang has over three decades of global event planning, production, and logistical experience in a variety of government, political, corporate, and professional sports settings. The Founder of First Generation Strategies, LLC, Chang has worked on four presidential campaigns. Most recently, he served as Director of Operations for Vice President Mike Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Chang served as Director of Advance for Vice President Pence at the White House, for the Secretary of Homeland Security, and as Acting Deputy Chief of Protocol for the United States. He also facilitated the start-up operation of the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball team after a 34-year absence from the nation’s capital. 

A magna cum laude graduate of The George Washington University, Mr. Chang holds a Master’s Degree in Political Management and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. 

Brussels Forum Session: Democracy on the Line: A Response

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent for Europe for The New York Times, based in Berlin. Erlanger was previously the bureau chief in Brussels, London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Belgrade, Moscow, and Bangkok. He also served as the newspaper’s editor of cultural news from 2002 to 2004 and as the chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington, from 1996 to 1999. Before coming to The Times, he worked for The Boston Globe for 11 years as European correspondent based in London from 1983-87. Erlanger shared the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for a series on Russia and shared another for Explanatory Reporting for a series on Al Qaeda awarded in 2002. He won ASNE's 2001 Jesse Laventhol prize for deadline reporting for his work in the former Yugoslavia and the German Marshall Fund's Peter Weitz Prize in 2000. Erlanger was awarded the 2005 Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle East journalism. In 2013, France made him a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. Erlanger graduated from Harvard College in 1974 and studied Russian at St. Antony's College, Oxford. 

Brussels Forum Session: NATO at 75: Defending Today, Defending Tomorrow 

Henry Foy is the Brussels bureau chief for the Financial Times (FT), overseeing coverage of EU affairs and managing a team of correspondents reporting on European politics and policy. He is also the lead writer for Europe Express, the FT’s weekday newsletter on European affairs. With over a decade of experience, Foy served previously as the Moscow Bureau Chief. In that role,  he interviewed President Vladimir Putin and analyzed his regime's descent into repression. Before that, he was the european diplomatic correspondent and the Central Europe correspondent based in Warsaw, covering Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, and the wider CEE region. Foy began his career as a reporter for Reuters in New Delhi and Mumbai. His expertise in the political, economic, and business sectors allows him to offer a global perspective on Europe's rapidly evolving landscape. 

Subigya Basnet is GMF’s multimedia specialist. Specializing in video production, podcast development, and innovative storytelling, he has more than a decade of experience creating impactful multimedia content. He has led projects to their successful completion by leveraging generative AI technologies and using engaging content to explain complex ideas to a wide range of audiences.

Prior to joining GMF, Basnet created multimedia content for variety of companies in the online education, technology, and nonprofit sectors in India, Nepal, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Basnet is one of the creators of the award-winning short film “Rendezvous with Mars”. He holds a master’s degree in Integrated Digital Media from New York University.

Brussels Forum Session: The Economic Counteroffensive: Rebuilding Ukraine

Aleksandra Karolina Wiśniewska is a member of the Polish Sejm (Parliament). She is a member of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committees, and a member of the NATO Subcommittee. She serves as chair of the Polish-American Parliamentary Group and vice chair of the Polish-Ukrainian Parliamentary Group.  

Wiśniewska is a political scientist and humanitarian aid worker who specializes in leading teams to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance in actively hostile and post-conflict settings.

Following Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine, Wiśniewska led an evacuation of children from Ukrainian orphanages to Poland and served as head of mission for the humanitarian aid organization INTERSOS in Ukraine. She has also served as head of mission for Polish Humanitarian Action in Yemen in response to the cholera epidemic, COVID-19, and the famine in that country. Earlier, she worked for the emergency aid NGO RNVDO Iraq in response to the displacement caused by the battle for Mosul, and at UNDP in Türkiye and Jordan in response to the Syrian civil war. She also volunteered and conducted field research on human rights violations in refugee camps across Europe. Wiśniewska is an alumna of the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford.