GMF Cities

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.

Verena Ringler is an innovator and practitioner of subnational diplomacy and multi-stakeholder engagement on the transition to climate neutrality. She leads strategic convenings in Austria, Europe, the transatlantic space, and the G20.

Ringler is the founding director of AGORA European Green Deal, which works to inspire and support cross-sectoral and forward-looking climate and nature leadership in the Alpine region and throughout Europe. From 2013 to 2018, Ringler directed the International Affairs Department and Europe project portfolio at Stiftung Mercator in Germany. Prior to that, she helped establish the EU’s communication mechanisms in Pristina, Kosovo, as deputy head for press and public affairs on an EU-US diplomatic team. She has also worked as an editor at Foreign Policy magazine.

Ringler has a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies in Washington and Bologna. She serves on the advisory boards of seven policy organizations, and regularly appears in the media. She holds registered trademarks on cross-sector strategy development methodologies including the Situation Room™.