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Erica Folkestad is a Washington, DC-based Senior Program Coordinator at GMF. She supports the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, GMF's flagship leadership program, and assists with implementing other leadership program initiatives. 

In 2019, General Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti completed a distinguished 41-year career in the US Army as the Commander, US European Command, and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO. He has collaborated with the leadership of all 29 NATO member nations, as well as the various NATO partner countries around the world.

Prior to that, General Scaparrotti served as the Commander of US Forces Korea / UN Command / Combined Forces Command in Seoul, South Korea from 2013 to 2016. He has also served as the Director of the Joint Staff, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, the Deputy Commander of US Forces—Afghanistan, the Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Additionally, over the years, General Scaparrotti served in key leadership positions at the tactical, operational, and strategic level of the United States military, including director of Operations at US Central Command. He has commanded forces during Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Support Hope (the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Rwanda), Joint Endeavor (Bosnia-Herzegovina), and Assured Response (Liberia).

General Scaparrotti’s awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and the Army Meritorious Service Medal. 

General Scaparrotti graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1978. His military education includes the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. Additionally, General Scaparrotti holds a master’s degree in administrative education from the University of South Carolina.

In addition to his work with The Cohen Group, General Scaparrotti is a member of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, a member of the Advisory Board of the Patriot Foundation, a Senior Fellow at the National Defense University, a member of the Advisory Board of the Spirit of America, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Korea Defense Veterans Association.

Forthcoming.

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent with The New York Times. She joined the paper in 2004 as assistant editorial-page editor before becoming a diplomatic correspondent in 2006 and White House correspondent in 2009.

In 2015, she was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, for her work in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic. She is also the winner of the George Polk award for health reporting (2015) and the Overseas Press Club Award (2015).

Cooper is the author of the New York Times bestseller The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood (2008), a memoir of growing up in Monrovia, Liberia, as well as Madame President: The Extraordinary Story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2017).

Matthew C. MacWilliams is the global public opinion lead of the Foundation International Communications Hub (Comms Hub), a newly established organization located in Spain and dedicated to the furtherance of civil society and democracy around the world. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Massachusetts where he was a visiting research associate and also lectured on democracy and participation in the international Civic Initiative program.

Through surveys and focus groups, he has examined the roots of democratic deconsolidation and rise of illiberal politics in the United States and countries across Eurasia and Europe . He has conducted quantitative and qualitative research exploring this question in over 25 countries including Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain,  Ukraine, and the United States.

Tobias Harris is Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He is an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, East Asian trade and security issues, and US Asia policy.

His first book, The Iconoclast: Shinzō Abe And The New Japan, was published by Hurst in 2020. His articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and the Nikkei Asia, and he regularly provides commentary for print and broadcast media worldwide. 

Andrew Cohen joined the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) as its first-ever managing editor in October 2022.

His appointment followed seven years as communications director for the Pew Research Center, the Washington, DC-based “fact tank” that conducts international public opinion polling and demographic analysis. He also served for seven years as the communications director for the Bertelsmann Foundation, the North American subsidiary of the Germany-based Bertelsmann Stiftung. He oversaw both organizations’ interaction with the media and other external audiences.