Security + Geopolitics

Douglas Hengel is a visiting senior fellow contributing to GMF’s work on global energy, climate, and resource challenges, with a particular focus on European energy security.  He is also an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

 As a former U.S. foreign service officer, Hengel served with the U.S. Department of State for more than 35 years.  Among his postings, he was deputy chief of mission in Rome and in Bratislava, and also served at the U.S. embassies in the Czech Republic, Peru, and Venezuela. In Washington, Hengel worked as deputy assistant secretary of state for energy, sanctions and commodities from 2007 to 2010, where his responsibilities included formulating and advancing U.S. international energy security policy, including relations with the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. Hengel chaired the Standing Committee on Long-Term Cooperation at the IEA and also worked extensively on Iran sanctions.

Hengel has a bachelor's from Colgate University and a master's in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.  

Kristine Berzina is the Washington, DC-based senior fellow, US defense and transatlantic security. She is responsible for leading programming on US, Nordic, Baltic, and Arctic security and defense issues, and provides analysis on NATO and US and European foreign policy.

Berzina also leads GMF’s Across America initiative, which takes European officials into the US heartland to build regional connections on security issues. She is a frequent commentator in international media, including The New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, France 24, Deutsche Welle, and The New Yorker. She is a co-host of Drošinātājs (The Fuse), a Ukraine-focused podcast and Latvian radio program.

Berzina previously worked on countering autocratic influence as head of GMF’s Alliance for Securing Democracy’s geopolitics team and, while based in Brussels and Berlin for the organization, on transatlantic security and energy issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Yale University and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Martin Quencez is a senior fellow and special adviser to the president. Over the past ten years, he has held several positions at GMF, including as managing director for GMF Strategic Foresight and director of the Paris office. He co-leads the Transatlantic Security Task Force and was an author of GMF’s annual flagship Transatlantic Trends report.

Dr. Quencez's work includes research on transatlantic security and defense cooperation, and US and French foreign policy, on which he regularly writes for international media. He is regularly invited by European ministries of defense to provide briefings and advisory support,  and frequently delivers presentations on geopolitics and transatlantic security to senior private-sector representatives.

Dr. Quencez was previously an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations, working in France for its European Powers program. He has taught transatlantic relations at the Euro-American campus of Sciences Po and worked for the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, focusing on French and Indian strategic thinking. 

Dr. Quencez studied international relations at Uppsala University and is a graduate of Sciences Po. He has a PhD in history from Sorbonne Nouvelle University. 

Kristina Kausch is deputy managing director of GMF’s South and Wider Europe program, dividing her time between Madrid and Brussels. An established voice on European foreign affairs and Europe’s relations with its neighborhood, she conducts research on a broad interdisciplinary portfolio that includes international security, connectivity, the geopolitics of technology, and global power shifts.

Prior to joining GMF, Kausch held positions with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; FRIDE, a Spanish think tank; the Bertelsmann Stiftung; and GIZ, the German development cooperation agency. She has contributed to a wide range of media outlets including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, Politico, El País, RTVE, Defense One, Deutsche Welle, ARD, Der Tagesspiegel, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. 

Kadri Tastan is a nonresident senior fellow in GMF’s Brussels office. His research focuses on Türkiye, the EU, transatlantic relations, energy, climate, and trade. Prior to joining GMF, he was an expert on European affairs and environmental issues at the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB).

Tastan has also been an IPC Mercator fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and an adjunct professor at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris and a master’s degree in international relations from Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.