Germany

Joerg Forbrig is the managing director of the European Resilience program, GMF’s long-term effort to empower democratic societies amid rising authoritarianism, increasing hybrid threats, and growing geopolitical tension. Based in GMF’s Berlin office, he oversees several targeted initiatives and specialized teams, including Engaging Central Europe; the Fund for Belarus Democracy; Ukraine: Relief, Resilience, Recovery; the ReThink.CEE Fellowship; and the Bulwark project on societal and democratic resilience across Europe’s East. He also works closely with GMF’s Balkan Trust for Democracy and Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation.

Forbrig’s analytical and policy work focuses on the easternmost members of the EU and NATO, the EU’s eastern and southeastern neighborhoods, and Russia. He has published widely on democratic processes, reform and resilience, civil society and citizen participation, and Central and Eastern European affairs. Forbrig studied political science, sociology, and Eastern European affairs at universities in Germany, Poland, and Hungary. He holds a PhD in social and political sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and a Master’s degree in political science from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

Sudha David-Wilp is GMF’s vice president of external relations and a senior fellow. She joined GMF in 2011, and as a member of the executive team she splits her time between Berlin and Washington, DC.

She leads GMF’s teams covering cities, government relations, strategic democracy initiatives, leadership programs, and strategic convening. She has extensive experience in stakeholder management with decision-makers on both sides of the Atlantic and has conceptualized a variety of convening formats involving high-level speakers in DC and across GMF’s European office network.

David-Wilp is an expert on German-American relations and the transatlantic partnership. She has written for outlets such as Axios, CNN, and Foreign Affairs, and has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg News, NPR, and numerous German newspapers and broadcasters. Prior to joining GMF, she was director of international programs at the US Association of Former Members of Congress in Washington, DC, and managed outreach to Capitol Hill and US government officials for programs such as the Congressional Study Group on Germany.

She received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree from Columbia University, and is an alumna of the Robert Bosch Fellowship and the American Council on Germany’s McCloy Fellowship programs.

Jackson Janes is a resident senior fellow at GMF and president emeritus of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) in Washington, DC. He has been affiliated with AICGS since 1989. The institute was recently renamed the American-German Institute. 

Janes has been engaged in German-American affairs in numerous capacities over many years. He studied and taught at German universities in Freiburg, Giessen, and Tübingen. He was the director of the German-American Institute in Tübingen (1977-1980) and of the European office of GMF in Bonn (1980-1985). He served as director of program development at the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (1986-1988) and was chair of the German-Speaking Areas in Europe Program at the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (1999-2000).

Janes is the honorary president of the International Association for the Study of German Politics and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves on the advisory boards of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee and the Zeitschrift für Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik (ZfAS). He is a former board member of the German-American Fulbright Commission and a former member of the selection committee for the Bundeskanzler Fellowships for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Janes has lectured throughout Europe and the United States and has published extensively on issues dealing with Germany, German-American relations, and transatlantic affairs. In addition to regular commentary given to European and US news radio, he has appeared on CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, and CBC, and is a frequent commentator on German broadcast outlets.  

Janes holds a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University, a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in international relations from Claremont Graduate University. In 2005, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country’s highest civilian award.