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Tara Varma is the managing director of strategic foresight and director of GMF’s Paris office. An expert on French and European foreign policy with a special interest in the transatlantic relationship and European strategic engagement in the Indo-Pacific, she has worked and lived in Shanghai, London, New Delhi, Paris, and Washington, DC.

Varma joined GMF from the Brookings Institution’s Center of the United States and Europe, where she was a visiting fellow. She was director of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Paris office from 2019 to 2022.

Varma holds a master’s degree in international relations from Sciences Po Lille and a master’s degree in international politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, where she focused on Asian politics and the foreign policies of China and India.

Evan T. Bloom is a visiting senior fellow focused on transatlantic security, the Arctic, and other issues related to polar, international environmental, and ocean affairs.

Bloom is a lawyer and former senior American diplomat. During his 30-year career at the US Department of State, he served as acting deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and fisheries. He was also director of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs and a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. He currently serves as senior advisor to UiT The Arctic University of Norway’s Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic, marine protected area policy advisor to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, polar governance chair of the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, and adjunct professor at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. He was a senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.

Bloom helped establish the Arctic Council, negotiating its initial rules and documents in 1996. He supervised US representation in the council from 2006 to 2020. He co-chaired its task force that produced the eight-party Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Science Cooperation in 2017. He also co-chaired the council’s ecosystem-based management experts group. He led the US delegation to high-seas treaty negotiations (biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction) at the UN from 2016 to 2020, and chaired the executive committee of the federal Extended Continental Shelf Task Force and supervised State Department representation at the International Maritime Organization and the International Seabed Authority. He also led US delegations to numerous law-of-the-sea bilateral and multilateral dialogues and served as the State Department’s representative to the White House Ocean Policy Committee.

Dr. Leonard Schütte is a GMF visiting fellow and an International Security Program fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His work at the intersection of academia and policy focuses on European defense, transatlantic relations, and foreign policy thinking within the MAGA movement.

Dr. Schütte was previously a senior researcher at the Munich Security Conference, a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) fellow at the American-German Institute, a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford, and an O’Donnell fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London.

Dr. Schütte has co-edited recent Munich Security Reports and co-authored the book “The Survival of International Organisations”. He has published policy briefs and academic articles in journals such as International Affairs and the Journal of European Public Policy. He regularly provides commentaries for newspapers and briefings for decision-makers.

Dr. Schütte holds a PhD from Maastricht University and master’s degrees from Cambridge University and the University of St Andrews.

Horia Razvan Botis is a fellow in GMF’s Bucharest office, where he focuses on the defense industry. Botis is a dual PhD candidate—in military science at Polytechnic University of Bucharest and in industrial defense at Bucharest University of Economics. He also serves as vice-chairman of the NATO Industrial Advisory Group and a member of the Council of Directors of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic.

Narek Sukiasyan is a consultant on Armenian affairs for GMF’s Bucharest office. He specializes in Armenia’s foreign and security policy, the country’s democratization process, and Armenia–Russia relations. Sukiasyan holds a PhD in international relations and political science from Yerevan State University (YSU), a master’s degree in regional politics from YSU, and a bachelor’s degree in international relations and European studies from Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. He is also a researcher at the Center for Culture and Civilization Studies at the Institute of Armenian Studies at YSU and an adjunct lecturer at the American University of Armenia. Since 2020, he has served as senior policy officer and project manager at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, South Caucasus.

Agatha Gorski is GMF’s digital communications specialist. 

She co-founded and led The Shadows Project, a youth-focused cultural NGO where she launched high-impact digital campaigns and collaborated with brands, NGOs, and governmental institutions. She previously worked on media analysis at NewsGuard Technologies, co-led the Did the War End? podcast at the Kyiv Independent, and developed social impact initiatives at the UN Global Compact.

Gorski holds a joint master's degree in international development and journalism from Sciences Po Paris. She is fluent in Russian and Ukrainian, with intermediate French.

Kristina Pitalskaya is a development manager for multilateral funding at GMF, and is based in Brussels. She brings more than nine years of experience and a background that includes work with the EU, the US Agency for International Development, the UN Development Program, and UN Women as well as with private foundations across Europe.

Pitalskaya has worked in the EU (Belgium and Czechia) and in Georgia on the technical implementation of EU and US democracy support programs. Her work has focused on strengthening civil society, media, and election sectors across Europe, the Eastern Partnership region, and Central Asia. She has led fundraising strategies and managed complex EU-funded proposals and multi-year projects, including under Global Europe, Horizon Europe, and Erasmus+.

Before joining GMF, Pitalskaya held grant and fundraising management roles with the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, the Prague Civil Society Centre, the World Organization of the Scout Movement, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, and the European Endowment for Democracy.

Pitalskaya holds a master’s degree in European studies from the College of Europe, a master’s degree in international relations from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tbilisi State University in Georgia. She is fluent in English, Georgian, Polish, and Russian, with working proficiency in French.

Sylvia Scheurer is a visiting fellow in GMF’s Ukraine Cities Partnership, where she focuses on financing solutions for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. She is an independent consultant and adviser, and the founder of a Barcelona-based advisory practice specializing in innovative and sustainable finance for development. With more than 15 years of experience across the UN system, governments, and the private sector, she has advised partners such as UNICEF, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the UN Foundation, and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). She focuses on innovative financing instruments, blended finance, and public-private collaboration to support the transition from funding to financing. Scheurer co-authored UNICEF’s Global Innovative Finance for Children Strategy, contributed to the Fourth UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), and has led feasibility studies and advisory work on health financing across several African countries. She holds master’s degrees in international relations and in art history and philosophy and has given guest lectures and talks on development finance and innovation.

Yukimasa Matsuzawa, MD, PhD, is a GMF Indo-Pacific resident fellow focused on the intersection of health security and foreign policy. He also serves as a 2025–2026 Sasakawa Peace Foundation Fellow under the American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship Program.

Matsuzawa previously served in key roles in Japan and international health security infrastructure. He was deputy director of the Global Outbreak Intelligence, Capacity Building, and Deployment Coordination Center at the Japan Institute for Health Security, where he led collaborations with partners across the United States, Europe, and Indo-Pacific. He also worked as a medical officer in the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, when he had a one-year secondment to the US Department of Health and Human Services as a medical liaison.

Matsuzawa holds a PhD from the University of Tokyo and has expertise in pandemic influenza and biosecurity. He conducts research at Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies on strategies against AI-driven biological threats. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on virology and health security.