United States

Dr. Daniel Kliman is GMF’s senior vice president for global power shifts. He oversees a new GMF pillar on adapting the transatlantic partnership to a shifting global landscape and serves as a member of the GMF executive team.

Dr. Kliman’s prior experience spans the US government, US military, think tanks, and the private sector. In his civilian career, he led teams at the US Department of State and the Center for a New American Security. He also worked for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and at a venture-backed, defense and aerospace startup. Early in his career, he spent three years at GMF, where he spearheaded Asia-related programming and conducted pioneering research on global swing states.

Since 2015, Dr. Kliman has served as an officer in the US Navy Reserve, deploying to US Navy Central Command in 2020, and activating in 2025 to advance the Defense Innovation Unit’s global partnerships.

Through publications, US congressional testimony, and civilian government service under the current and previous three US presidential administrations, Dr. Kliman has helped to sharpen Washington’s focus on strategic competition with China. His work has shaped how the United States has adapted its alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and beyond, and informed American efforts to develop new policy tools to compete with China across all domains.

Dr. Kliman is the author of numerous think tank reports and op-eds and has published two books, “Fateful Transitions: How Democracies Manage Rising Powers, From the Eve of World War I to China’s Ascendance” and “Japan’s Security Strategy in the Post-9/11 World: Embracing a New Realpolitik”. He holds a PhD in politics from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University. 

Melissa Hooper is a senior fellow with GMF's Strategic Democracy Initiatives. She leads the team’s Rule of Law Action Network, which works to devise policy responses and solutions to issues affecting justice-sector institutions and actors. She is an attorney and policy expert with over 20 years’ experience in accountability law, high-impact litigation, and human rights advocacy. She was previously a senior adviser at USAID, led policy advocacy at Human Rights First, and served as the director for Russia at the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative office in Moscow. She also was a founding member of GMF's Transatlantic Democracy Working Group, which focuses on responses to democratic backsliding in Europe and the United States.

Hooper has successfully litigated complex domestic and international cases, worked with Congress and the California state legislature to author and pass legislation, and managed coalitions and initiatives across government, academia, and civil society. She has testified repeatedly before Congress on issues of accountability for rights violations and corruption, democratic resilience, and national security. She has led international teams to secure justice in human rights cases and has contributed to policy development at the highest levels, including co-chairing the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Human Rights Working Group. She has worked alongside lawyers and watchdogs in numerous countries to develop legal and policy responses to anti-democratic government action, and she initiated the first USAID program on democratic backsliding.