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Julita (Jul) Thanapalasingam is GMF’s government relations program coordinator. She previously interned at the American Maritime Congress and US Department of Homeland Security, where she focused on congressional relations and government engagement. She also worked for the New Jersey state legislature. 

Her policy and research interests include transatlantic security and cooperation, NATO, defense capabilities and development, the prosecution of war crimes, and international humanitarian law.

Thanapalasingam graduated summa cum laude from American University (AU), earning a bachelor’s degree in justice and law with a concentration in counterterrorism and security studies. She was a member of the School of Public Affairs honors program. She also studied in Belgium under AU’s EU In Action program and interned during that time for Edelman Global Advisory.

Ty Melnick is a Washington, DC-based program coordinator at GMF. She supports the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, GMF's flagship leadership program, and assists in implementing other leadership program initiatives. 

Melnick holds a bachelor's degree in international studies with specializations in international political economy and global development from American University.

Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar is a Visiting Distinguished Fellow with GMF Technology. She is the chair of the Steering Group of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group IT Coalition, a multinational IT and cyber defense assistance format. She also chairs the board of directors at the Global Cyber Alliance. Previously, she was the director of the Digital Society Institute at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. From 2018 to 2021, she served as ambassador for cyber diplomacy and director general of the Department of Cyber Diplomacy at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she led Estonia's efforts to promote norms and international law to guide the  behavior of states in their cyber activities. She also contributed to several UN working groups on cybersecurity. Prior to that, she worked as head of the Cyber Policy Coordination Unit at the European External Action Service, where she led and coordinated EU external relations on cyber issues and co-led the preparation of European Cybersecurity Strategies. She established EU strategic cyber dialogues with the US, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and a number of international organizations. She also launched the EU's global cyber capacity-building programs and led the development of the EU Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox to strengthen the EU's response to malicious cyber activity. In 2011, she was assigned to the NATO International Staff to prepare NATO's Cyber Defence Policy.

Susanna Numminen is a Berlin-based program coordinator on GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. Her responsibilities include the coordination of all operations for the India Trilateral Forum and the Japan Trilateral Forum.

Numminen previously worked as a security specialist in the Finnish prime minister’s office, conducting comprehensive security analyses, developing security preparedness for standard and disruptive conditions, and serving as the liaison for equality and equity. She was also a global market insight associate at Atheneum Partners, an expert network based in Germany that connects clients with industry experts to exchange specialized knowledge. In that position, she coordinated consultations in public policy, energy, and financial markets, among other fields.

Numminen holds a master’s degree in politics and organizations and a bachelor’s degree in political science, with minors in gender studies and social psychology, from the University of Helsinki. She speaks fluent Finnish and English, and has a good command of German and Swedish.

Sayuri Romei is a Washington, DC-based senior fellow in GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. She leads work on Japan and heads the Japan Trilateral Forum. Her research focuses on US-Japan relations and security issues in the Indo-Pacific.

Romei was previously an associate director of programs at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, where she was responsible for the Next Generation of US-Japan Nuclear Experts program and the Mansfield Forum on Energy and Climate Change, among other initiatives. She was also a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the RAND Corporation, a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center, the fellow for security and foreign affairs at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, and a MacArthur nuclear security fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Romei holds bachelor’s degrees in English language and literature from the University of Sorbonne, and in international relations from the University of Roma La Sapienza, and a master’s degree in international relations and a PhD in political science from Roma Tre University. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Kyodo News, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and The Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, among other media outlets. She has appeared on BBC World News, the BBC World Service, and the PBS NewsHour to comment on security issues in East Asia. She speaks Italian, French, and Japanese, and is studying Korean.

Anastasiia Popko is a program coordinator with GMF’s Ukraine: Relief, Resilience, Recovery initiative, based in Berlin. She is responsible for the administrative part of the grantmaking program and for fostering relationships with grantees. Her primary focus is on strengthening the resilience of civil society and local media in Ukraine and the broader region.  

Prior to joining GMF, Anastasia worked as a partnership manager in Ukrainian online media, developing relations between European institutions and Ukrainian journalists. She has also worked on international cultural and art projects, as well as on decolonization, memory, and identity topics.