Elene Kintsurashvili is a Program Assistant at GMF East. Based in the Warsaw office, she works on research and convening activities that foster transatlantic cooperation related to the region. Prior to joining GMF, Elene worked as an assistant to the Deputy-Secretary General at the Parliament of Georgia. Elene received her master’s degree in European Interdisciplinary studies from the College of Europe and was awarded with an honorary bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Vistula University. Her areas of expertise include NATO/EU vis-à-vis Eastern Neighborhood matters, the Caucasus region and Georgian domestic politics. Elene is fluent in Georgian, English and Russian, she speaks Polish with working proficiency and has a basic knowledge of French.
Caucasus
Hanna Kovhan is a senior program coordinator based in Berlin. She supports GMF work on fellowship and alumni programs for leaders from the United States and Europe. The programs include the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, the Manfred Wörner Seminar, the Policy Designers Network, the Leadership Lab, the Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network, and alumni programs for participants in these groups.
Hanna earned her bachelor’s degree in translation studies from the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine, and holds a master’s degree in intercultural communication studies from the European University Viadrina as well as an executive diploma in the art of diplomacy from the European Academy of Diplomacy. In addition to her studies in Germany and Poland, Hanna spent a year studying international relations at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in Georgia and a semester at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Hanna is also a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Alumna.
As senior vice president of democracy at GMF, Laura Thornton leads teams whose programs defend and promote democracy. She oversees the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), through which GMF tracks and analyzes malign internal and external influence operations that target democracies worldwide and builds strategies to thwart them. Thornton also oversees GMF’s transatlantic trusts, which support civil society organizations and actors in Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, the Black Sea and Eurasia regions, Belarus, and Ukraine. The trusts bolster democratic resilience through civic education, media literacy, election monitoring, public awareness campaigns, and media and watchdog activities.
Thornton guides GMF’s global democracy initiatives to build communities of practices, share lessons, and forge transnational alliances on democratic innovation. Her research and analysis focus on authoritarianism, far-right illiberal movements, and democratic decline. She participates in numerous democracy networks and working groups as a leader and expert.
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.
David Salvo is senior fellow and managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF. An expert in Russian affairs, Salvo has been analyzing the Kremlin’s authoritarian toolkit to undermine democracy at home and abroad throughout his career.
Salvo has worked at ASD since 2017, first as a resident fellow and then as deputy director. He is the principal author of The ASD Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies and makes regular media appearances, including on NPR, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and ABC News, to discuss US-Russian relations, Russian foreign policy toward its near abroad, and Russian tactics and objectives to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe.