Maryanne Mutty is a human resources manager at GMF. As a generalist, she supports GMF staff in Washington, DC, and all seven GMF offices in Europe. She focuses on talent acquistion, benefit administration, employee relations, training, and HR compliance.
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Nana Gongadze is GMF’s digital communications specialist. She helps manage the organization’s website, digital content, and social media. Before joining GMF, Gongadze led advocacy communications at Razom for Ukraine, where she marshaled American support for a victorious and prosperous Ukraine. Her professional experience also includes communications positions at Axios, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Gongadze holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations, with a minor in art history, from American University.
Amelie Buchwald is a program assistant with GMF’s Indo-Pacific Program. Based in Berlin, she focuses on the India Trilateral Forum.
Buchwald previously worked as a junior project assistant with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Brussels. She has experience working with the EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York, the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) in Berlin, and the German embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Buchwald holds a master’s degree in international relations awarded jointly by the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University, and the University of Potsdam; a master’s degree in peace and security studies from the University of Hamburg; and a bachelor’s degree in European studies from Maastricht University.
Gunnar Wiegand is a visiting distinguished fellow in the Indo-Pacific program since November 2023. From 2016 to 2023, Wiegand served as the managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service (EEAS). In this function, Wiegand was a key contributor to the EU’s policy orientations on EU relations with China and India, the Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Europe Asia Connectivity Policy (the precursor for the Global Gateway initiative), and enhanced security engagement with Indo-Pacific partners. He was also the EU's senior official for the Asia Europe meetings (ASEM) and EU-ASEAN relations. Among other tasks, he served as the EU's chief negotiator for the new EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement. Prior to that, Wiegand served as EEAS director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, OSCE and Northern Dimension (2011–2015).
Wiegand held various senior positions at the European Commission, including director for Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus, and Central Asia at DG RELEX (2008–2011), head of unit for Relations with Russia and the Northern Dimension at DG RELEX (2006–2008), head of unit for Relations with the United States and Canada (2003–2006), and spokesman for Lord Chris Patten, EU Commissioner for External Relations (1999–2002).
Wiegand holds a law degree from the University of Hamburg and a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, and the Paris School of International Affairs in Paris, France.
Jessica (Ika) Trijsburg is a visiting fellow with GMF Cities and a research fellow in city diplomacy at the Melbourne Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne, where she leads the Disinformation in the City research program, a collaboration among researchers at five Australian universities.
Trijsburg has more than a decade of experience in local government, refugee and migrant health, and intercultural education. She has served on two international working groups of the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities Program and led a number of industry research projects related to inclusion, social cohesion, and capacity building. She is an executive member of the Victorian Refugee Health Network and an ambassador for Get a Grip of the Grind and the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Trijsburg held a Rotary Peace Fellowship between 2011 and 2013, when she undertook graduate study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
Sam Wilson is a nonresident fellow with GMF and a systems director for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation, where he leads the center’s publications on national security space issues. His research has appeared or been covered in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, Politico, SpaceNews, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, MilsatMagazine, and SatMagazine, among other outlets.
Prior to joining Aerospace, Wilson served as a senior defense analyst for the US Government Accountability Office, overseeing analysis on strategic force structure; arms control; nuclear command, control, and communications; and US nuclear forces in Europe.
Wilson has completed fellowships with the National Defense University’s Program for Emerging Leaders, the Center for Strategic and International Studies Project on Nuclear Issues, GMF, and the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He is a term member with the Council of Foreign Relations and a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He holds a master’s degree in public policy and a bachelor’s degree in political theory from the University of Virginia, from which he graduated with distinction.
David Voegtle is GMF’s development coordinator for government funding. Before joining GMF, he served as the external affairs officer for Charities Aid Foundation America (CAF America), a nonprofit specializing in the facilitation of donor-advised grants to charities worldwide. He managed the organization’s international grantmaking partnership and disaster response programs. Voegtle’s efforts raised $33 million for charities responding to the 2021 floods in Germany’s Rhineland, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the 2023 earthquake in Turkey.
Prior to entering the nonprofit sector, Voegtle served as a staffer for a major US gubernatorial campaign and for a congressional fundraising firm. He is a 2017 graduate of Rhodes College, where he studied political science with a concentration in political philosophy. He speaks Spanish and German.
Gillian Ziegler is GMF's alumni relations coordinator and helps to engage the more than 4,000 alumni of GMF's leadership programs. He manages the alumni database and coordinates the alumni relations office's outreach and engagement activities with GMF’s development team.
Prior to joining GMF, Ziegler worked at the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a nonprofit, bipartisan policy organization dedicated to solving geopolitical challenges in trade and industrial security, economic and ecological security, and cybersecurity. He was also a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, focusing on religion and right-wing political parties in Central Europe. From 2015 to 2017 he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania.
Ziegler holds a master's degree in international relations from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a bachelor's degree in history from Goucher College.
Rachel Mlinarchik is GMF’s managing director of development. She was previously national philanthropy director at SBP, a national disaster response and relief organization, and she spent nine years at CARE, focusing on major and principal gifts, new market development, and strategic engagement. Her earlier professional experience includes fundraising roles at American University, Public Citizen, and the American Kidney Fund.
Mlinarchik is a trained diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) facilitator and taught English as a second language in Japan, Thailand, and the United States. She holds a master’s degree in international communication from American University’s School of International Service and a bachelor’s degree in English from George Mason University.