Meet the Speakers


 

Olga is the Director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she is also a professor teaching influence in the digital age, disinformation, and trust and safety. She previously led policy to counter influence operations at Meta, specializing in coordinated inauthentic behavior, state media capture, and hack-and-leaks within the Trust and Safety Team. Prior to that, she led threat intelligence work on Russia and Eastern Europe at Facebook, identifying, tracking, and disrupting coordinated IO campaigns, and in particular, the Internet Research Agency investigations between 2017-2019. She has a background in journalism and threat intelligence and her work has been featured in publications like The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Lawfare, and The Globe and Mail. Olga is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, serves on the review board for CYBERWARCON, the Trust & Safety Advisory Group of the Institute for Security and Technology, and the board of directors for the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA).

Jochen Spangenberg is a media and communication expert working as Deputy Head of Research and Cooperation Projects at Deutsche Welle. The topical focus of his work over the past decade has been on research dealing with social newsgathering, disinformation analysis and verification of digital content, and relating all this to the news sector and journalism. 

Jochen also lectures at the Free University Berlin in Media & Communication Studies, is an active supporter of Lie Detectors, an NGO that brings media literacy into classrooms, and serves as vice-chair of the Advisory Council of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), Europe’s primary initiative against disinformation. He is furthermore Advisory Board chair of CEDMO (Central European Digital Media Observatory) and Advisory Board member of GADMO (German-Austrian Digital Media Observatory.

Roman Osadchuk is a Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab with over five years of experience. His research focuses on disinformation in Ukraine and neighboring countries. He is the author of multiple investigations and reports on disinformation, influence campaigns, and computational propaganda, which uncover the tactics and techniques of malign actors. Roman is also a senior lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where he teaches bachelor’s and master’s courses on propaganda effects and open-source investigations.

Tamar Kintsurashvili is the Executive Director at MDF and the Editor-in-Chief at Myth Detector.  She is a member of Deutsche Welle Akademie Media and Information Literacy Experts Network (MILEN) and the UNESCO MIL Alliance nomination committee. Tamar is an author and co-author of numerous research papers and publications on Russian information warfare in Ukraine, Anti-Gender and Anti-LGBTQI Mobilization in Georgia, Infodemic, anti-Western propaganda, Kremlin Influence Index, media literacy and media self-regulation.

She is responsible for International Partnerships at Maldita.es and coordinates different projects and investigations led by Maldita.es in an international level.

Before she coordinated the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) project,  and has previously worked as a fact-checker and investigative journalist. 

Aistė Meidutė is an editor and lead fact-checker at Delfi.lt fact-checking initiative 'Melo detektorius'. Delfi.lt is the largest online news organization in Lithuania. Aistė is responsible for the work of fact-checking team and international collaborations. She also produces fact-checking content, follows disinformation trends, conducts journalistic investigations related to information warfare topics and gives media literacy presentations. Aistė has been actively fighting disinformation since 2017. In 2021 she joined DIGIRES (Baltic Research Foundation for Digital Resilience) project as a fact-checker, consultant and media literacy lecturer and is currently involved in BECID (Baltic Excellence Center for Combating Information Disorders) activities. 

Salome Giunashvili has been an integral member of the Media Development Foundation team since 2022. Since 2023, she has served as a researcher for an initiative that brings together seven different fact-checking organizations. This project focuses on enhancing technological capabilities within messaging applications, facilitating connections between organizations to identify and analyze cross-border disinformation campaigns.

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Salome is a distinguished graduate of the Myth Detector Lab and actively contributes as a data analyst for various studies within the MDF network. She holds an M.A. in International Studies from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, with a specialization in International Security and Hybrid Warfare.
 

Olivia Sohr has worked at Chequeado, a fact checking organization based in Argentina, since its foundation in 2010, where she is currently the Director of Impact and New Initiatives.She coordinates different journalistic projects within the organization, among them LatamChequea, the network of Latin American fact checkers that brings together 40 organizations from 18 countries. She also works in the evaluation of impact of fact checking and academic research to better understand the dynamics of disinformation.

Giorgi Revishvili is a political analyst. Until recently, he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Research Assistant at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. Mr. Revishvili has extensive experience in public service in Georgia, particularly in policymaking, strategic analysis, countering foreign malign influence, and other security areas. He previously served in the Office of the National Security Council of Georgia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. Prior to that, Mr. Revishvili was a Researcher/disinformation analyst at the Media Development Foundation.

His research focuses on Russia’s foreign and security policy, the Russia-Ukraine war, malign influence operations, great power politics, and the wider Black Sea region. Mr. Revishvili frequently gives interviews to major news outlets, including CNN, BBC, ABC, CBC, BBC Radio, Al Jazeera, TRT World, and others.

Fulvia Menin is a policy officer at the EEAS, Information integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) division. She works on information manipulation and disinformation policies and international partnerships. Previously she worked for the European Commission focusing on media policies. She holds a law degree from the University of Bologna and a further specialisation on intellectual properties and information and communication technologies from KU Leuven. 

Public policy professional with more than 20 years' experience in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Former minister of Interior of Latvia. PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.

Hatia Jinjikhadze joined the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) in 2009, and currently serves as a Deputy Director of the Civil Society Foundation (formerly OSGF) and Manager of Media and Communications Program. For over 15 years the Program has been supporting independent media outlets in Georgia’s capital and the regions, including ethnic minority communities, to produce quality content of public interest and to develop as viable organizations. As a member of Media Advocacy Coalition she works to improve media legislation and to protect journalists’ rights.  In 2000-2009 she worked in the US Embassy in Tbilisi on media support programs funded by the US Government.

Nino Dolidze is the Executive Director of International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a key election watchdog in Georgia. ISFED is one of the largest, oldest and trusted civil society organization in Georgia, established in 1995.

Nino has more than 17 years of extensive working experience in the field of Democracy, Elections, Human Rights, Rule of Law, Gender Equality and fight against Disinformation. During her career, she has worked at number of international and domestic organizations in Georgia, implementing various large-scale projects aimed at promoting the democratic development of the country, including good governance, legislative strengthening, rule of law, local government development, citizens engagement and voter education.​​

Nata Koridze is the Managing Editor of Civil.ge, one of the oldest online news outlets in Georgia delivering news and analysis since 2001 in English, Georgian, and Russian.
She is a career diplomat with 17 years of diplomatic experience. Throughout her career, she has worked on such key directions of Georgia's foreign policy as EU integration, conflict resolution and non-recognition policy, NATO integration, as well as on policy planning issues.

From 2013 to 2022, she worked on Euro-Atlantic integration issues as Head of the NATO Integration Coordination Department at the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and as Deputy Director of the Department for Security Policy and Euro-Atlantic Integration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2008 to 2012, she served as Counsellor to the Georgian Mission to the European Union.
 

Eto Buziashvili is a Research Associate at the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab. In this role, Eto researches malign influence operations, foreign interference, social media manipulation, and digital authoritarianism with a focus on Russia and Eastern Europe. Prior to the Atlantic Council, she advised the National Security Council of Georgia and was involved in developing strategic documents. Before joining the NSC, Eto worked as a senior analyst at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, where she covered security issues related to Russia and the occupied regions of Georgia. Her work is frequently referenced in top-tier media outlets and international publications.

Yevhen Popov is an information security specialist from Ukraine. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, he focused on countering disinformation. He became integral to the Osavul.inc team, assuming leadership roles in civil partnerships and research departments.

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His academic background includes a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Political Science. Yevhen used to work as the head of the Southern Ukrainian office of the International Renaissance Foundation (Part of the Soros Foundation family). As a consultant and researcher, Yevhen cooperated with the European Endowment for Democracy (Brussels), Alliance of Democracy(Copenhagen), ZOIS(Berlin) Democracy Study Center(Kyiv), and many others.

Régis Genté is a freelance journalist and an expert on the former USSR. Based in Tbilisi since 2008, he covers Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia for several French media outlets, including RFI, France24 TV and Le Figaro. He has also authored or co-authored several books, including the recent "Volodymyr Zelensky, dans la tête d’un héros" (Volodymyr Zelensky, in the mind of a hero), 2022; "Futbol, le ballon rond de Staline à Poutine" (Football from Stalin to Putin), 2018; "Poutine et le Caucase" ("Putin and the Caucasus"), 2014; and "Voyage au pays des Abkhazes" (A journey to the land of the Abkhazians), 2012. (dm)

Erekle Magradze is a seasoned professional with over a decade of experience in technology, education, and machine learning. Currently serving as the International Accreditation and Development Manager at the School of Technology, Ilia State University, he has a deep expertise in machine learning, cloud computing, and DevOps. Erekle has led advanced machine learning projects as the Director of Engineering and DevOps Team Lead/Manager. His academic background includes a doctorate from Georg-August Universität Göttingen, and he is actively involved in mentoring students in cutting-edge computer science and engineering disciplines, with a strong focus on machine learning and AI.

Teona Turashvili joined IDFI in 2012 an analyst. Currently, she is the Head of Media, Internet and Innovations Program. Teona is a graduate student of MSocSC in Transformation in the South Caucasus at the Center for Social Sciences, at Tbilisi State University. At the same university she has obtained a bachelor degree of the faculty of the Social and Political Sciences (major – International Relations, minor – Political Sciences).

Previously, Teona made an internship at Georgian Institute for Russian Studies, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.

The research interests of Teona include: Political Parties, E-governance, Regional Studies, Politics of Post-Soviet States.

Sandro Gigauri has been working as a Researcher at the Media Development Foundation (MDF) since 2021; He also serves as the English Language Editor at MDF’s fact-checking platform “Myth Detector.” Sandro is also an Information Environment Monitoring Expert at the European Service Network and an Invited Lecturer at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Before joining MDF, Sandro was a contributor at Oxford Analytica, an international consultancy company focused on geopolitical analysis and advisory.

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In addition to working on the manifestations of mis/disinformation on a daily basis, Sandro has worked on a number of publications, including: ‘Russian Information Warfare: Two Months After the Invasion in Ukraine,” and “Anti-Western Propaganda.” Sandro holds two Master’s degrees: One in International Relations from the Central European University (CEU) and the other in Higher Education Administation from Ilia State University. 

Historian, PhD student of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, author, Visegrad Fund Fellow, researcher of the Where Are Our People? campaign at PR Army.

Giorgi Kandelaki was a member of the Georgian Parliament from 2008 to 2020. He is now a project manager at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory (Sovlab), a leading Georgian think tank focused on researching Georgia's Soviet totalitarian past and countering its weaponization by Russian disinformation. Most recently Giorgi edited Georgia vs Joseph Stalin, a collaborative popular history book published jointly by Sovlab and Lasha Bugadze, one of Georgia’s most acclaimed writers.

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During his time in the Parliament, Mr. Kandelaki was member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2008 to 2020 and of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly during the same period, serving as Chairman of the Georgian delegation in 2008-2012. He was also a member of the Georgian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. In 2019, Kandelaki was member of the Parliamentary Working Group on disinformation and propaganda. 

Vazha Tavberidze is a staff writer with RFE/RL's Georgian Service. As a journalist and political analyst, he has covered issues of international security, post-Soviet conflicts, and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations. His writing has been published in various Georgian and international media outlets, including The Times, The Spectator, The Daily Beast, and IWPR.

Tatiana Cojocari is a Sociologist and Disinformation Expert at Chișinău based think tank WatchDog.MD Community. She has a PhD degree on Russian Religious Diplomacy in Eastern European countries. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Romanian Centre for Russian Studies working on the Transnistria topic, Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University, and Think Visegrad Felow at Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW). Her main research interests are Political Sociology, Russian Interference in the Eastern European Countries’ Foreign Policy, and Conflict Studies.

Hans Gutbrod is a Professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. He has written on politics, ethics, and commemoration, and works as a consultant in policy research. Together with colleagues, Hans led a high-impact campaign to increase the transparency of research funding, Transparify. He previously was the regional director of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC). Hans has been working in the Caucasus region since 1999 and holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His recent book "Ethics of Political Commemoration: Towards a New Paradigm" (with David Wood, 2023) proposes that the just war tradition can help to order public debates on remembrance. He is on X at https://twitter.com/HansGutbrod 

Max Bernhard is a journalist specialized in digital investigations and open source intelligence (OSINT). He currently works on the fact-checking team of German non-profit investigative newsroom CORRECTIV, where he focuses on Russian influence operations and disinformation campaigns, such as „Doppelganger“. He previously worked as a freelancer and as a staff reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Max has reported on far-right and fringe groups, dis- and misinformation, as well as environmental and human-rights issues in the UK, Germany, Spain, Hong Kong and Japan. 

Léa is a senior investigator at Graphika, specializing in the detection and tracking of influence operations and extremist groups through open source investigation. Léa’s work has helped disrupt efforts by extremists in multiple countries to orchestrate real-world harm and exposed the inner workings of nation-state influence operations from Russia, China, and Iran.

Ilya Ber was born and lived in Moscow; he is now based in Tallinn. He graduated from the Russian State University on Humanities as a historian and worked for 15 years as TV-editor for Russian quiz-shows (10 years as editor-in-chief for ‘How To Be A Millionaire’). At the same time he worked in journalism for BBC Russian Service, RIA Novosti and other media outlets. 2017-2022 he used to be a lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, where he teached the course “Information search and Verification in Modern Media Environment”. In 2020 he was an author and presenter in the weekly fact-checking section Provereno on the international RTVi TV channel. The same year 2020 he launched Provereno.media, a non-profit fact-checking project for the Russian speaking internet community. Now he works as an editor-in-chief for Provereno and as fact-checker for Delfi.ee.

Elena Volochine is a French-Russian reporter, videographer and director. Born in Moscow, Soviet Russia, she studied and began her journalistic career in France in 2009. Reporter at i-TELE, then at the CAPA press agency , she quickly found herself covering news in her country of origin, Russia. In 2012, she decided to relocate permanently to Moscow and cooperated with the major French and French-speaking media (i-TELE, Canal Plus,. France Télévisions, Arte, TF1, M6, Europe 1, RTS, RTBF…). In 2016, she became bureau chief for the international channel France 24 in Moscow. During her decade of correspondence – until her hasty return to France in March 2022 – she covered all the major events in Russia and across the post-Soviet space: two re-elections of Vladimir Putin, the first political trials, the Olympic Games of Sochi, the Maidan revolution, the annexation of Crimea, the war in Eastern Ukraine, the death of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. 

Maiko Ratiani has been working at Myth Detector since May 2019. She is the deputy editor-in-chief and head of the fact-checking department. Maiko is a co-author of a number of publications, such as: “Media Literacy Sector Mapping in Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, and Ukraine”, Mapping research: Comparing Foreign Influence in Georgia”, “Russian and Chinese Influences in Georgia - 2021 Update”.

Maiko is a former student of Myth Detector Lab and one of the winners of the Multimedia Content competition with the project on conspiracies about the Notre Dame fire. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and a Master’s Degree in Regional Studies from Ilia State University. Maiko also received Erasmus+ exchange program scholarships twice for Comenius University in Bratislava and the University of Salzburg. Maiko has previously worked on organizing educational projects. In 2016-2017 she completed internships at Tbilisi State University Administration and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia.

Vano is a Senior Analyst at GRASS and is involved in the organizations partnership within Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking program, mainly by monitoring the proper execution of the program and writing/editing fact-checking articles about online mis/disinformation. He is also involved in other programs aimed at countering disinformation and increasing media literacy in Georgia.

I have an extensive background in journalism for about 11 years. My journey as a journalist began at CivilNet Online Television in 2013, where I covered various spheres for a while. But in recent years I have been more interested and mainly involved in investigative and fact-checking journalism.  Since 2019, I have been the Editor-in-Chief of the Fact Investigation Platform (Fip.am), which focuses on combating disinformation and fake news in Armenia. In November 2021 I set up and am currently leading the #CivilNetCheck fact-checking unit at CivilNet.am. Our fact-checking unit has become one of the most reliable and professional teams operating in Armenia.

Arabella Kordzakhia has been working for the Media Development Foundation since April 2021. She holds a Master's Degree in Journalism and Social Communication from Adam Mickiewicz University and a Bachelor's degree in Business Management (Tourism) from Ilia State University. Arabella has also spent one academic year at the University of Wroclaw in the frame of the "Scholarship Program for Young Scientists,” working on a research paper about the Georgian and Polish Media systems. 

Before joining Myth Detector, she worked as a news journalist at TV Formula and was an author/presenter of the education column in the morning show. Arabella completed an internship at Germany's international broadcaster - Deutsche Welle in Berlin, as well as at Polish Public Broadcaster (TVP Poznań).

Tina Tvauri has been working for Myth Detector as a fact-checker since April 2022. Prior, she worked as a journalist covering international news for the online media outlet Tabula.

Tina holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Tbilisi State University.

Dr. Yehor Brailian is a Ukrainian historian and journalist. He studied history at the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University (MA, 2014).  In 2018 Yehor Brailian started to contribute in the media on foreign affairs. Yehor’s texts featured in Ukrinform, European Pravda, HVG, The Institute of War and Peace Reporting, blog at the Wilson Center. Yehor comments for BBC, Radio Free Europe, Espreso TV, Suspilne, BelSat on international relations, information security and Telegram. Yehor was an editor of Toynbee Prize Foundation blog in 2018-2020.

From October 2021 until September 2023, Yehor was a special correspondent of the information agency of Ukrainian Ministry of Defence ArmyInform. In September 2023, Yehor joined a team of Detector media, a key Ukrainian watchdog media as an analyst. His main focus is Russian disinformation and its impact on world politics as well as information space in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Dr. Mamuka Andguladze is a leading Georgian media rights advocate and academic. As the chair of the Tbilisi-based Media Advocacy Coalition, which unites 17 prominent Non-governmental organizations, he spearheads efforts to protect and promote media freedom, journalistic rights, and pluralism. With a strong academic background in human rights and media law, Dr. Andguladze has authored extensive research documents on the media environment and journalist rights. His experience includes roles at the Council of Europe and Transparency International Georgia, and he is a regular lecturer at Georgian and international universities.