Global Power Shifts

Elene Kintsurashvili is a Warsaw-based senior program coordinator on GMF’s Transatlantic Security team, focusing on research and convening activities. Her areas of expertise include NATO and EU engagement in the Eastern Partnership countries. She also follows the South Caucasus and Black Sea regions, Georgian domestic and foreign policies, and Russian hybrid warfare and its impact on European security and democratic resilience.

Kintsurashvili previously served as assistant to the deputy secretary-general of the Georgian parliament. Outside her professional work, she has been involved in civic initiatives advancing democracy and Georgian aspirations to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community.

Kintsurashvili received her master’s degree in European interdisciplinary studies from the College of Europe, where she specialized in European neighborhood policy and the Eastern Partnership, and was awarded an honorary bachelor’s degree in international relations from Vistula University. She speaks fluent Georgian, Russian, and Polish.

Vicky Masson is chief of staff to the acting president at GMF. She works closely with the executive team, assists in streamlining operations, and facilitates cross-functional collaboration. Vicky began at GMF as an intern in the Paris office in 2021, and moved to the Geostrategy Hub as Program Operations Manager.

Prior to joining GMF in 2021, Vicky was an intern at the Agence Française de Développement, where she contributed to a research project on the intervention of international stakeholders in countries in crisis, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. She holds a master’s degree in international security at Sciences Po Paris, where she specialized in diplomacy and African studies. 

Sophie Arts is a Washington, DC-based fellow with GMF’s Transatlantic Security team. She leads the team’s research on Nordic and Arctic security and geopolitics, covering North American homeland defense against conventional and hybrid threats, and cooperation with allies and partners. She also focuses on Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic region. 

Arts serves as co-chair on the task force for global peace and security for the Think7 (T7), the official G7 group that brings together the world’s leading think tanks and research centers. Her writing and commentary are featured regularly in international media. 

In 2017, Arts joined GMF's security and defense policy team, focusing on transatlantic security within and outside NATO. Her prior research covered the alliance’s partnerships and flexible formats, the impact of emerging technologies on NATO defense and deterrence, the dynamics of escalation within the cyber domain, and strategic stability in a multipolar world.

Arts previously worked at the Atlantic Council, GMF’s Brussels office, Spiegel Online International, and Kantar Media. Originally from Germany, she holds a master’s degree from Humboldt University in Berlin and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Freiburg. She completed coursework at Connecticut College and the University of Virginia, where she also worked as a research assistant in the media studies department and in the university’s Center for Politics, supporting Larry J. Sabato's work on "The Kennedy Half-Century". 

Alberto Tagliapietra is Senior Program Coordinator at the Mediterranean Policy Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Brussels. His research interests focus on EU policies, migration, and the intersection between technology and migration.

Alberto joined GMF in 2019. He holds a BA in international relations and an MSc in European and international studies from the University of Trento.

Gesine Weber is a fellow on GMF’s Geostrategy team, where she works on European security and defense issues. Based in Paris, she focuses on EU defense initiatives, security and defense policy of the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Europe's role in the global order. 

During a 2024 fellowship at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Weber led a research project on European balancing in the Indo-Pacific in the context of US-China competition. 

Prior to joining GMF, she worked as a defense policy adviser at the German parliament and as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Shanghai. Weber is pursuing a PhD in defense studies at King’s College London, where she is part of the European Foreign Policy Research Group and contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy. She is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for International Security.

Weber holds a master’s degree in European affairs from Sciences Po in Paris and another master’s degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her writing and commentary appears regularly in English, French, and German in European and other international media, including the BBC, the Neue Züercher Zeitung, Politico, and France 24. 

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the managing director of GMF South 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.

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.