Shanthi Kalathil is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. She is also founder and principal at MDO Advisors, which helps organizations plan for geopolitical risk, and a senior fellow with the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. Under President Biden, Kalathil served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights at the National Security Council, where she oversaw the organization of the inaugural Summit for Democracy and the development of the first US Strategy on Countering Corruption, among other initiatives. Previously, she was the senior director of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, a leading think tank exploring such emerging challenges to democracy as digital authoritarianism, foreign interference, disinformation and kleptocracy. Throughout her career, she has focused on the intersection of technology, good governance, and international affairs, at organizations including the US Agency for International Development, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the World Bank. A former Hong Kong-based reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Kalathil has authored and edited numerous policy and scholarly publications including Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 2013); Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance (The World Bank, 2011); and (with Taylor C. Boas) Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), which was cited by Foreign Policy as one of “Ten Books To Learn How Technology Shapes the World”. She sits on the boards of Radio Free Asia and the National Democratic Institute and holds degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Joshua Kirschenbaum is a senior fellow at GMF’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, focusing on illicit finance. Josh joined GMF from the Treasury Department, where he worked from 2011 to 2018. He served as acting director of the Office of Special Measures at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, overseeing international money laundering investigations under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Previously, Josh worked on Iran sanctions at Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. He received a master’s degree in international security from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Northwestern University.
Katherine Mansted is a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and the senior adviser for public policy at The Australian National University’s National Security College. Katherine regularly writes and presents for Australian policy and national security professionals on the impact of technology on democracy, strategy, and international relations. She also co-hosts the "National Security Podcast" on policyforum.net, and she is a non-resident fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Previously, Katherine has worked as an adviser to a cabinet minister, a commercial solicitor, and law clerk in Australia’s High Court. She holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she studied as a General Sir John Monash Scholar, and Bachelors of Laws and International Relations from Bond University, where she graduated with the University Medal in Law.
Heidi Tworek is assistant professor of international history at the University of British Columbia, a visiting fellow at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, and a non-resident fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She is working with the Alliance for Securing Democracy project at GMF on issues related to media. Tworek is the author or co-editor of three books forthcoming in 2018 on the history of news, business, and international organizations. Tworek has published in academic venues including Journal of Policy History, Business History Review, International Journal of Communication, Journal of Global History, Journalism Studies, and German History. She has also published in newspapers and magazines including Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Politico, Wired, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She previously held the position of assistant director of undergraduate studies and lecturer on history in the History Department at Harvard University. Tworek has held visiting fellowships at Birkbeck, University of London and the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany. She was a fellow at the Transatlantic Academy at GMF in 2016–17. Tworek received her BA (Hons) in modern and medieval languages from the University of Cambridge and earned her PhD in history from Harvard University.