David Salvo

David Salvo is a senior fellow and managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund. An expert in Russian affairs, Salvo has been analyzing the Kremlin’s authoritarian toolkit to undermine democracy at home and abroad throughout his career.

Salvo has worked at ASD since 2017, first as a resident fellow and then as deputy director. He is the principal author of The ASD Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies and makes regular media appearances, including on NPR, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and ABC News, to discuss US-Russian relations, Russian foreign policy toward its near abroad, and Russian tactics and objectives to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe.

Prior to joining GMF, Salvo was a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, serving most recently as the deputy secretary of state’s policy advisor for Europe, Eurasia, and international security issues. He also advised senior-level State Department negotiators on the protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus, worked on US policy toward NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and served overseas in Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He speaks Russian and Serbo-Croatian and has a basic knowledge of French.

David received his master’s degree from Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and a bachelor’s degree in government and Russian from Georgetown. He is an avid music lover and plays in several DC-area bands, including a tribute to the renowned rock band Phish.

Rachael Dean Wilson

Rachael Dean Wilson is the managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where she leads work on US elections and political analysis. Driven by her belief that safeguarding democracy must involve all Americans, Wilson has spoken in cities across the country about the importance of building democratic resilience to autocratic efforts to undermine democracy. She has commented on election security issues for print and broadcast news outlets ranging from The Washington Post and C-SPAN to WVTM-TV Birmingham and The Arizona Republic.

Wilson served in senior roles on Capitol Hill and political campaigns, and has experience in corporate communications and PR consulting. She worked for the late Senator John McCain for six years, most recently as his Senate communications director and advisor to his 2016 reelection campaign. Wilson received a bachelor’s degree in communication in public service from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in global policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

Peter Benzoni

Peter Benzoni is an investigative data and research analyst on the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where he manages ASD's data-driven tools, develops new methodologies to combat information threats, and conducts open-source investigations.

Peter most recently was a data analyst with Atlas Public Policy, where he was involved in the development of many of ASD’s tools—most notably, the Hamilton dashboard. Prior to his work at Atlas, Peter spent time as a cybersecurity associate with the US Department of Energy and as a development consultant with Accenture. He holds a B.S. in computer engineering and a B.A. in political science and international studies from Iowa State University.

Lindsay Gorman

Lindsay Gorman is the senior fellow and head of the technology and geopolitics team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund and a venture scientist with Deep Science Ventures. A quantum physicist and computer scientist by training, she leads ASD’s work on AI and democracy, US-China technology competition, and transatlantic innovation.

Lindsay most recently served as a senior adviser in the Biden White House on AI, democracy, and national security issues. At the Office of Science Technology and National Security Council, she crafted US technology competition and national security strategy and led international technology initiatives through the US-EU Trade and Technology Council and Quad. In particular, she founded and led the US-EU AI cooperation workstream in the Trade and Technology Council. She was also the principal architect of the Advancing Technology for Democracy agenda of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, which included multilateral initiatives on export controls, privacy-preserving AI, and democracy-affirming technologies.

Prior to serving in the White House, Lindsay spent over a decade at the intersection of technology development and national security policy. She is the former CEO and managing director of a technology consulting firm she founded, Politech Advisory, where she advised start-up and venture capital clients. She has served as an expert contributor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission on international technology standards; technology adviser to US Senator Mark Warner; consultant to Schmidt Futures on 5G; and fellow with National Academy of Sciences. Her technical background includes building self-driving cars for the DARPA Urban Challenge.

Lindsay regularly delivers keynote addresses and briefs senior leaders across the Atlantic on China’s technology ambitions and building a democratic approach to emerging technologies. She has recently testified before the U.S. Congress and Australian Parliament on AI and technology innovation. Her research and analyses have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, and she frequently appears in TV and radio interviews on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, BBC, and Bloomberg. She is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Truman National Security Project, and an awardee of the US State Department Speaker Program. She holds a BA in Physics from Princeton University and an MS in Applied Physics from Stanford University.

Nathan Kohlenberg

Nathan Kohlenberg is a research analyst at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where he tracks authoritarian interference activities in the MENA region and provides research support to fellows on issues including election interference, digital surveillance, and information manipulation on social media, among others. He previously served as a policy associate at the Truman National Security Project, where he remains a fellow. He has written about disinformation and foreign election interference in Defense One, Salon, Just Security, and elsewhere.

Nathan received a BA from Carleton College in Minnesota and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he conducted research on the South China Sea conflict and contributed a chapter to South China Sea: Maintaining Peace/Preventing War, published by the JHU Press in 2017.

David Levine

David Levine is the senior elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where he assesses vulnerabilities in electoral infrastructure, administration, and policies. David is also an advisory committee member for the Global Cyber Alliance's Cybersecurity Toolkit for Elections, an advisory council member for The Election Reformers Network, a member of the Election Verification Network, and a contributor to the Fulcrum. Previously, he worked as the Ada County, Idaho Elections Director, managing the administration of all federal, state, county, and local district elections.

David’s research interests and recent publications focus on election access, trust and security, and the nexus between external threats from malign actors and the challenges many democracies face in conducting free and fair elections. David’s work has been published and quoted in USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg Technology, The Hill, Business Insider, MIT Technology Review, BBC, EU Observer, and others.

He received his JD from the Case Western School of Law, where he discovered his passion for election integrity. Since then, he has administered elections, worked with advocacy groups to improve the election process, and observed elections overseas in a number of countries for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Olivia Monroe

Olivia Monroe is a program coordinator at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), where she manages the team’s work on anti-corruption in Ukraine. Prior to joining ASD, she served as a development assistant for government funding to GMF. She holds a bachelor's in global affairs and Korean studies from George Mason University. Monroe speaks Korean and Uzbek.

Vassilis Ntousas

Vassilis Ntousas is te senior manager and fellow for Europe for the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund. His research interests lie in European foreign policy and the European Union’s global engagement.

Prior to joining the ASD, he was the Senior International Relations Policy Advisor at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies in Brussels, where he led the foundation’s global research, advocacy, and strategic convening work. In 2019–2020, he held the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Academy fellowship at Chatham House, where he remains an Academy Associate with the institute’s Europe program. He is the author of several policy papers and regularly comments on global affairs for international media outlets. He is also the co-editor of two books published by Routledge, The European Union and China’s Belt and Road: Impact, Engagement and Competition (2021) and EU Climate Diplomacy: Politics, Law and Negotiations (2018). Ntousas holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a BA in International Relations and Politics from the University of Sheffield. He speaks English and Greek.

Josh Rudolph

Josh Rudolph is the senior fellow and head of the malign finance and corruption team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund (GMF). As an expert in the financial channels through which autocrats undermine and interfere in democratic institutions, he tracks and analyzes flashpoints of autocratic corruption threatening democratic processes. He also leads GMF’s research on Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts.

Rudolph has researched and authored leading work on authoritarian malign finance, strategic corruption, and kleptocracy, as well as on public policies to deter, detect, defund, and defend against these threats. He regularly gives private briefings and public testimonies to governmental bodies, including the US Congress and the European Parliament. He frequently appears in the media and has published work in the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Fletcher Security Review, The American Interest, Dallas Morning News, Just Security, and The Hill.

Before joining GMF, Rudolph served in a range of US government positions dealing with finance and national security. As an adviser to the US executive director at the International Monetary Fund, he formulated and represented official US positions toward matters before the organization’s executive board. As a member of the White House National Security Council, he chaired interagency diplomatic and technical work on Russia sanctions and coordinated other economic initiatives. He also served as deputy director of the markets room at the US Treasury Department.

In 2022, Rudolph took extended leave from ASD to serve as the senior fellow on USAID’s Anti-Corruption Task Force, where he was the lead author of the Dekleptification Guide. He also revamped USAID’s strategy for corruption sanctions and tracked oligarch yachts after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Before his public service, Rudolph worked for seven years at J.P. Morgan as an investment banker and financial markets research strategist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Babson College and a master’s degree in public policy with a concentration in international trade and finance from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Louis Savoia

Louis Savoia is a program coordinator for the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where he serves as the lead author of ASD's weekly newsletter, the Securing Democracy Dispatch. A graduate of American University’s School of International Service, Louis received a bachelor’s in international relations with focuses on the European Union and NATO, US foreign policy, and democratic governance. As part of his coursework, Louis spent a semester studying European affairs in Brussels, Belgium. His capstone project investigated patterns of hostage-taking by US adversaries, which he and his research group presented to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. 

Bret Schafer

Bret Schafer is a senior fellow and head of the Alliance for Securing Democracy's information manipulation team. Bret is the creator and manager of Hamilton 2.0, an online open-source dashboard tracking the outputs of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media outlets, diplomats, and government officials. As an expert in computational propaganda, state-backed information operations, and tech regulation, he has spoken at conferences around the globe and advised numerous governments and international organizations. His research has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, and he has been interviewed on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and the BBC. Prior to joining GMF, he spent more than ten years in the television and film industry, including stints at Cartoon Network and as a freelance writer for Warner Brothers. He also worked in Budapest as a radio host and in Berlin as a semi-professional baseball player in Germany’s Bundesliga. He has a BS in communications with a major in radio/television/film from Northwestern University, and a master’s in public diplomacy from the University of Southern California, where he was the editor-in-chief of Public Diplomacy Magazine.

Krystyna Sikora

Krystyna (Krysia) Sikora is a research assistant for the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund, where she supports research on election integrity and information manipulation. Her writing has been published in the EU Observer, Euractiv, and the Fulcrum.

Prior to joining ASD, Krysia received an MA in Eurasian, Russian, and East European studies from Georgetown University. Her studies centered on right-wing populism, disinformation, and democratic decline in Central and Eastern Europe, with a focus on Poland. Krysia played professional soccer in Poland for two years and has a BA in political science and a certificate in policy journalism and media studies from Duke University.

Etienne Soula

Etienne Soula is a research analyst with the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund based in Brussels. His research focuses on China’s growing political and economic assertiveness in the transatlantic space. Etienne recently spear-headed the expansion of ASD’s authoritarian interference tracker to cover over 150 incidents of Chinese interference in Europe and North America. He also contributes to weekly reports on Russian, Chinese, and Iranian diplomats and state-media activity using the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard. Etienne previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Hudson Institute, and NATO. Fluent in French and German, he holds a dual master’s in international affairs from American University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, as well as a law degree from the University of Nottingham.

Laura Thornton

As senior vice president of democracy, Laura Thornton leads teams whose programs defend and promote democracy. She oversees the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), through which GMF tracks, analyzes, and builds strategies to thwart malign internal and external influence operations that target democracies worldwide. Thornton guides GMF’s global democracy initiatives to build communities of practices, share lessons, and forge transnational alliances. She participates in numerous democracy networks and working groups as a leader and expert.

Thornton also oversees GMF’s transatlantic trusts, which support civil society organizations and actors in Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, the Black Sea and Eurasia regions, Belarus, and Ukraine that bolster democratic resilience through civic education, media literacy, public awareness campaigns, and media and watchdog activities.

Prior to joining GMF, Thornton was director of global programs at International IDEA, a Stockholm-based intergovernmental think-and-do tank that advances democracy. She led multiple teams across Europe focused on constitution-building, parliamentary processes, elections, gender and inclusion, political parties, and democracy assessment and analysis. She managed the development of global comparative knowledge and applied research products aimed at supporting and advancing democracy worldwide, including the Global State of Democracy report and the Global Monitor on COVID-19’s impact on human rights and democracy.

Thornton served for more than 20 years in leadership positions at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), working throughout Asia and the former Soviet Union. She has written extensively about political party development, political finance and corruption, elections, and disinformation, and has led multiple election observation missions worldwide. At NDI, Thornton designed public opinion research efforts, including national polls, focus groups, and experimental research designs to explore disinformation, security, geopolitics, democracy and human rights, and political developments. She is the co-author of Political Parties in Asia: Promoting Reform and Combating Corruption in Eight Countries (NDI, 2003). Thornton has a master’s degree from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

Dylan Welch

Dylan Welch is the China technology analyst at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund. As a member of ASD’s technology and geopolitics team, he works on exposing and contesting China’s global technology influence, including from AI and digital infrastructure competition.

Welch was most recently at the Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), where he interned with its China practice and focused on critical and emerging technology matters. Prior to ASG, he completed his master’s in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School with a thesis on US-China technology competition in space that was prepared in consultation with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Earlier in his career, Welch developed teaching curricula in Wuhan, China, and served as a budget analyst for the New York City Office of Management and Budget. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from New York University and is a recipient of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship in advanced Chinese.