Italian

Alix Frangeul-Alves is a program coordinator on GMF’s Risk and Strategy team. Based in Paris, she focuses on US domestic politics and foreign policy, and the geopolitics of energy.

Frangeul-Alves holds a master’s degree from the French Institute of Geopolitics, where she specialized in security and defense, international relations, and diplomacy. She wrote master's theses on the geopolitical stakes of the energy transition in the United Kingdom and on the role of American natural gas in the transatlantic community’s geopolitical strategy. She speaks English, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Ambassador Brent Hardt is a resident senior fellow at GMF who brings 35 years of experience leading at all levels of government. He has guided five embassies as ambassador, chargé d’affaires, and deputy chief of mission, and served as foreign policy advisor to US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, working closely with allies to meet vital security challenges. As professor and senior advisor at the US Naval War College, he taught national security strategy and policy and developed a seminar on the evolution of modern Europe.

Hardt joined the US Foreign Service in 1988, serving in Berlin, the Hague, Rome, Paris, Canada, and the Caribbean. He was an exchange diplomat with the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense in 1993. In Washington, he served as Team Leader for NATO Policy in the State Department’s Office of European Political and Security Affairs, where he was responsible for NATO enlargement, NATO-Ukraine, and European Security and Defense policy issues.

Over the course of his career, Hardt has received multiple Senior Performance Awards, the Director General's Award for Reporting, five Superior Honor Awards, and three Meritorious Honor Awards. He also received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the US Special Operations Command Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in law and diplomacy and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Laurențiu Pleșca is a scientific researcher and PhD candidate of the Doctoral School of Political Sciences at the University of Bucharest. His main areas of expertise are Russia's geopolitics in the Black Sea, the Eastern Partnership, EU common policies (foreign and security policy, and the Eastern Neighborhood), and the internal and external policies of the ex-Soviet states. 

Pleșca has a master's degree in international relations and European studies, and a bachelor's degree in political science, from the University of Bucharest.

Simone Mangili is a visiting fellow in GMF’s Cities program. As executive director of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA), Mangili leads CNCA’s strategic development and initiatives aimed at supporting member cities in driving innovation and setting the course for climate-neutral cities worldwide. Mangili has over 20 years of experience across local government, nonprofits, and the private sector, having worked widely in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East on a broad range of initiatives aimed at securing just and climate-positive futures. He works with cities, stakeholders, and communities at the nexus of climate change and sustainability with an emphasis on social equity and regenerative approaches.

Prior to joining CNCA, Mangili served as aide to the mayor of Torino, Italy, and aide to the deputy mayor for environment and sustainability. In this capacity, he was responsible for managing strategic planning projects requiring cross-sector collaboration and for developing policy and delivering projects to realize an ambitious sustainability agenda for the 21st century. Prior to joining the mayor’s team, Mangili was head of projects and operations at Torino Internazionale, where he managed metropolitan strategic planning processes including the development of the metropolitan area’s strategic plan, Torino Metropoli 2025. His international experience ranges from real estate consulting and development management to designing public engagement processes to building private-public partnerships for the development of green infrastructure. In addition to his professional experience, Mangili has served as traveling faculty in World Learning’s Cities in the 21st Century study abroad program and developed World Learning’s Rethinking Food Security program. He is an external lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Turin in territorial and environmental planning. Mangili holds a bachelor's degree in community, regional and environmental studies from Bard College and a master's degree in regional planning from Cornell University.

Julia Pallanch is senior program coordinator for GMF’s Indo-Pacific Program. Based in Berlin, her portfolio concerns the management of operations including the Stockholm China Forum, and Young Strategists Forum.

Prior to joining GMF, Pallanch received training as externalist (foreign policy expert) at the EU delegation in Beijing and supported the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia program in Berlin. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sinology from Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy, and is finalizing a master’s degree in modern East Asian studies at the University Duisburg-Essen, where she specializes in Chinese foreign policy and EU-China relations.

Pallanch speaks fluent Italian, English, and Slovak, and is proficient in Mandarin Chinese and German.