Joerg Forbrig is the managing director of the European Resilience program, GMF’s long-term effort to empower democratic societies amid rising authoritarianism, increasing hybrid threats, and growing geopolitical tension. Based in GMF’s Berlin office, he oversees several targeted initiatives and specialized teams, including Engaging Central Europe; the Fund for Belarus Democracy; Ukraine: Relief, Resilience, Recovery; the ReThink.CEE Fellowship; and the Bulwark project on societal and democratic resilience across Europe’s East. He also works closely with GMF’s Balkan Trust for Democracy and Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation.

Forbrig’s analytical and policy work focuses on the easternmost members of the EU and NATO, the EU’s eastern and southeastern neighborhoods, and Russia. He has published widely on democratic processes, reform and resilience, civil society and citizen participation, and Central and Eastern European affairs. Forbrig studied political science, sociology, and Eastern European affairs at universities in Germany, Poland, and Hungary. He holds a PhD in social and political sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and a Master’s degree in political science from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the managing director of GMF South and Wider Europe and the regional director for Türkiye. Prior to joining GMF, he was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, Ünlühisarcıklı served as director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish NGO promoting participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services.

Ünlühisarcıklı is an expert on transatlantic relations and Turkish foreign policy, domestic politics, democratization, and civil society. He is quoted frequently in international media including The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC.

After graduating from the Robert College (Istanbul), Ünlühisarcıklı received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Marmara University and his master's degree from Koç University. He speaks fluent English in addition to his native Turkish.

Astrid Ziebarth is deputy managing director & senior fellow, GMF Technology in the Berlin Office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She focuses on the question of how digitalization and emerging technologies impact society, with a special focus on migration and migration policy as well as on the future of work.

William McIlhenny is a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He was formerly at the White House as a director at the National Security Council, and at the US Department of State as a senior policy advisor. He also served as a member of the secretary of state's policy planning staff. 

Alina Inayeh is currently a non-resident fellow. She joined GMF in 2007 as the director of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project dedicated to strengthening cooperation and fostering development in the Black Sea region. She is an active practitioner in the field of international development and democratization, having run the Freedom House office in Ukraine in 2004 and the NDI office in Russia in 2000-2003, with a focus on civic education and political processes. She has trained NGOs throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on issues related to NGO development and democratization. She was a leading civic activist in the 1990s in Romania and an active promoter of the NGO sector in the country.