Sayuri Romei is a Washington, DC-based senior fellow in GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. She leads work on Japan and heads the Japan Trilateral Forum. Her research focuses on US-Japan relations and security issues in the Indo-Pacific.

Romei was previously an associate director of programs at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, where she was responsible for the Next Generation of US-Japan Nuclear Experts program and the Mansfield Forum on Energy and Climate Change, among other initiatives. She was also a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the RAND Corporation, a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center, the fellow for security and foreign affairs at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, and a MacArthur nuclear security fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Romei holds bachelor’s degrees in English language and literature from the University of Sorbonne, and in international relations from the University of Roma La Sapienza, and a master’s degree in international relations and a PhD in political science from Roma Tre University. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Kyodo News, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and The Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, among other media outlets. She has appeared on BBC World News, the BBC World Service, and the PBS NewsHour to comment on security issues in East Asia. She speaks Italian, French, and Japanese, and is studying Korean.

Zorana Gajic is a former Program Officer, Transatlantic Trusts at GMF.

Oscar Luigi Guccione is a program assistant in GMF’s Transatlantic Security Program in Warsaw. He is also a junior fellow with NATO. His work involves research on Poland and Central and Eastern Europe, with a focus on European defense-industrial policy, EU–NATO coordination, and Poland’s domestic and foreign policy. He contributes to GMF’s research and policy engagement through analytical briefs, high-level convenings, and outreach to stakeholders in government, industry, and civil society. 

Previously, Guccione worked at the European University Institute in Florence and at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Secretariat in Vienna, and served on Reuters’ Global Picture Desk in Gdańsk, Poland. 

Guccione is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw, where his research examines gender representation and the radical right in Europe. He holds an advanced professional master’s degree in international relations and diplomatic affairs from LUMSA University, and a double master’s degree in European Studies from the Jagiellonian University and the University of Padua. 

Rita Barbosa Lobo is a former Program Assistant, Alliance for Securing Democracy at GMF.

Amandine Gnanguênon is a GMF Risk and Strategy nonresident fellow, and a senior fellow and head of the Africa Policy Research Institute’s (APRI) Geopolitics and Geoeconomics Program. 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 and the Institute of Security Studies in Dakar. She established and led the sub-Saharan Africa program at the Institute of Strategic Research at the 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. 

Isabel Varela is a former Senior Manager for Organizational Culture & Internal Communications at GMF.