Meet the Speakers


 

Nina Jankowicz is an internationally-recognized expert on disinformation and democratization, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, and the author of two books: How to Lose the Information War (Bloomsbury 2020), which The New Yorker called “a persuasive new book on disinformation as a geopolitical strategy, ” and How to Be A Woman Online (Bloomsbury 2022), an examination of online abuse and disinformation and tips for fighting back, which Publishers Weekly named “essential.” She was recognized for her Distinguished Professional Contributions to Media Psychology and Technology in 2024 by Division 46 of the American Psychological Association. She is the co-founder of the American Sunlight Project, a non-profit focused on countering disinformation. Jankowicz has advised governments, international organizations, and tech companies, and testified before the US Congress, and the UK, Canadian, and European Parliaments. 

Tamar Kintsurashvili is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Media Development Foundation (MDF), a leading Georgian civil society organization specilizing in disinformation research, fact-checking, and media literacy. She is DW FoS Award-winning journalist and MIL educator and a member of the Deutsche Welle Akademie’s Media and Information Literacy Experts Network (MILEN), contributing her expertise to global discussions on media literacy and democratic participation. 
Tamar is the editor-in-chief of Myth Detector, a fact-checking and disinformation analysis portal, which is a verified member of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and and the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). In academia, Tamar Kintsurashvili serves as an associate professor at Ilia State University, where she teaches courses on media ethics and propaganda research methods.

Mamuka Andguladze is a chair of Media Advocacy Coalition in Georgia. His experience spans advocacy, legal analysis and research. Mamuka Adguladze was the media program manager at Transparency International Georgia and project officer  for the Council of Europe, where he coordinated several local and regional projects on issues such as media freedom, internet governance, data protection, self-regulation, etc. Mamuka Andguladze is the author/co-author of a number of reports, blogs and statements on topics such as media freedom, journalistic rights, advertising market, etc. Mamuka Andguladze has PhD and LL.M degrees obtained in Germany at Saarland University.

Marie Bohner works on development strategies to support AFP’s global digital investigation team, which takes in more than 130 journalists and 26 languages globally. She accompanies partnerships with the Digital Investigation’s department partners – including major social media platforms, EU institutions, as well as with peer digital investigation and fact-checking organisations in Europe and globally. She is also a member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) Governance Body, as well as of its policy task force. She is part of the expert committee of the newly launched Sunstorm Foundation designed to support innovative projects in Europe around information integrity. 
Marie coordinated the award-winning CrossCheck France collaborative project, gathering more than 30 newsrooms and tech partners to tackle disinformation during the French Presidential Election in 2017. She did so on behalf of First Draft, and was their Global Head of Partnerships until 2021. 

Eto is a Research Associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, where she leads research on Russian influence operations, foreign interference, and hybrid threats, and is engaged in building resilience of government, civil society, and media actors worldwide. Her work regularly informs public debate and policy conversations, and in 2024, Eto was named one of NATO’s “20 Women Fighting Information Threats.”
Before joining the Atlantic Council in 2019, Eto served as an advisor to Georgia’s National Security Council and worked in other national security roles within the public sector. In these roles, she advised on hybrid threats, developed strategic planning documents, and contributed to high-level dialogue on national security priorities.
For three consecutive years, Eto served as an adviser on Russia for Freedom House’s annual “Freedom on the Net report.” 

Tommaso Canetta is a Deputy director of Pagella Politica and Facta news since 2020, fact-checker since 2016 and professional journalist since 2012. He mainly deals with European and international projects involving our newspapers. In particular, he coordinates the fact-checking activities of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and the Italian Digital Media Observatory (IDMO). Tommaso is a member of the Governance Body of the European Fact-Checking Standard Network (EFCSN) and of the Taskforce of the Code of Practice on Disinformation of the European Union. He has a master degree in Law, with specialization in European and international law, and a 2nd level university master degree in Journalism.

Jeanne Cavelier is a journalist who began in specialized magazines before working as a Moscow correspondent covering Russia for French media. She later joined Le Monde on international and economic newsletters and now heads the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders.

Denis Cenusa is an Associated expert at the Geopolitics and Security Studies Centre (Lithuania) and Visiting Fellow at the Florence School of Transnational Governance/European University Institute (Italy). He is a risk analyst and strategic communicator certified within specialised programs at the London School of Economics (2022), the Geneva Security Studies Centre (2023), the Baltic Defence College (2023), and the Swedish Defence University (2023).
His research covers geopolitics of European integration, critical infrastructure in international relations, and hybrid warfare in the post-Soviet space and Black Sea regions. Over the past 15 years, he has produced more than 300 analytical articles, policy papers, reports, book chapters, and academic articles.  

Valentin Châtelet is a research associate for security at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab based in Belgium.

Châtelet researches disinformation, ethnic movements, and political activism throughout post-Soviet countries, the Baltic states, Russia, and Belarus. As a self-taught programmer, he has worked for the French private sector as a geographic information systems engineer, developing software for geolocation purposes.

He has also worked with the French defense ministry as data-driven analyst on war areas specializing in open-source intelligence and social media. He held a redactor position within the French think-tank Nemrod-Enjeux Contemporains de Défense et de Sécurité with a focus on Russia, terrorism, and cybernetic conflicts.

Olena Churanova is a Ukrainian journalist, fact-checker at StopFake.org, and senior lecturer at the Mohyla School of Journalism, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA). She specializes in combatting disinformation, particularly Russian propaganda, and is recognized for her expertise in media literacy.

Dr. Mikhail Doroshevich is the Editor-in-Chief of Factcheck BY, where in 2023–2025 he oversaw a series of analytical investigations into FIMI/DIMI, coordinated inauthentic behavior in Belarusian TikTok, YouTube botnets, and comparative NLP/LLM methods for detection. His case studies examine Belarusian state-media propaganda pipelines, TikTok’s role around elections in Poland and Romania, Kosovo-related narratives, and recurring monitoring of Belarusian state YouTube channels. His work relies on computational methods, including botnet detection, coordination analysis, topic/sentiment profiling, and tooling benchmarks for fact-checking.

Zsófia Fülöp is a Hungarian journalist at Lakmusz, the country's only independent fact-checking site. She joined the team in May 2023 and covers the pressing problems of the social and health systems, press freedom and democracy, as well as political and social issues in her wider region, from a disinformation perspective. Previously, she worked for 9 years at the independent political-cultural weekly Magyar Narancs, where she strongly focused on reporting on under-represented communities. In 2022, Zsófia was awarded a fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, researching media representation of the Roma community in Hungary. Currently, she is part of the 2025 cohort of the BIRN's Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence programme. In addition to Hungarian media, her writing has appeared in Initium Media and Balkan Insight.

Régis Genté is an independent journalist covering the post-Soviet région since 2002. He has 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)

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Arzu Geybulla is an Azerbaijani journalist, writer, and human rights advocate. Arzu has contributed to numerous international outlets, including Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, and Open Democracy, where her writing has covered topics ranging from challenges and rights violations in Azerbaijan to regional geopolitics. She is the regional editor for South Caucasus and Turkey at Global Voices and a researcher on Azerbaijan at Human Rights Watch. She has also served as a speaker and panelist at international conferences and forums, sharing insights on media freedom, technology’s impact on civil liberties, and conflict resolution. In 2024, she co-founded Free Voices Collective, an initiative by exiled Azerbaijani journalists, activists, and rights defenders to lead international advocacy efforts focusing on the declining environment of rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan. She continues to manage Azerbaijan Internet Watch, a platform she launched in 2018 that documents and monitors digital information controls and their impact on civil society in Azerbaijan. 

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.
 

Nadine Gogu is the director of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) in Chisinau, Moldova. The IJC is a leading media resource center in Moldova that provides assistance to journalists and media
institutions throughout the country. Nadine helps carry out the organization’s mission to promote independent and impartial media in Moldova. Under her supervision, since 2010, a number of important draft laws have been developed by IJC, including the draft Law on freedom of expression, Law on Advertising, amendments to the Broadcasting Code in order to ensure transparency of media ownership, amendments to the Law on Access to Information.

Ani Grigoryan has nearly 14 years of experience in journalism, specializing in fact-checking and investigative reporting. She previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the fact-checking platform Fip.am and later established and now leads the fact-checking unit at CivilNet, where she develops training programs and drives efforts to counter disinformation.

Marina joined Fundación Maldita.es in 2022 as a Public Policy and Institutional Development Officer. With a background in international relations, she works on platform regulation and its enforcement, researches disinformation campaigns, and conducts analysis on mitigation actions.

​Paul-Joël KAMTCHANG is the Executive Secretary of ADISI-Cameroon. He is also the founder and editorial coordinator of DataCameroon, a website promoting data journalism and investigative journalism. He is also the founder and editorial coordinator of Data-Check.org, a website promoting fact-checking and researching disinformation.

Since the end of 2023, he has been one of the OECD's experts on disinformation and information integrity, and is also an expert for several international organizations on data and data journalism, including the International Center for Journalism (ICFJ) based in the USA and CFI-Medias in France. 

Aistė Meidutė has ten years of experience working in the media. Since 2018, she has been the editor and founder of Delfi's fact-checking initiative Melo detektorius (Lie Detector), certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). Her main fields of interest include investigative journalism, counter-misinformation and disinformation activities and media literacy interventions (MIL). She gives lectures, moderates events, and creates educational MIL materials.

Anton Tarasyuk is the Co-Founder and Expertise Lead at Mantis Analytics, an AI-powered intelligence platform designed to strengthen strategic decision-making in complex and high-threat environments. The company operates across Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova with a focus on foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) threats, providing intelligence to support institutional resilience. Its platform integrates AI-native simulation and network analysis to assist national security institutions, NATO allies, and trusted partners.

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

Chiara Pacenti is a Data Analyst in the Strategic Communications, Taskforces and Information Analysis Division of the European External Action Service’s Strategic Communications Division. She is currently working on analytical projects aimed at producing situational awareness on  Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) and improving a common framework and methodology to analyse FIMI evidence. Previously she worked for the spokesperson's service of the European Parliament on data-driven projects related to the fight against disinformation. 

Galyna Petrenko is a director of the NGO "Detector Media". She has been working as a journalist for over 20 years specializing in media, information policy, and FIMI. Within the NGO, she heads the FIMI Research Center, which analyzes the coordination of pro-Russian media networks during the war, the media landscape of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the hybrid Russian activities in Ukraine and beyond across various social networks, etc. She is also a member of the expert council of the Media Literacy Index, an annual nationwide study on media literacy in Ukraine, as well as a member of public council under the Committee of Verkhovna Rada on Freedom of Speech.

Prof. Dr. Guido Keel has been working as Senior Advisor to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media since January 2025, with a geographical focus on the South Caucasus region. Before this assignment, he had been working as a professor for Journalism and Media Literacy at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. He holds a PhD in Journalism Studies and a Master in Social Anthropology. 

Jake is a Senior Communication Expert representing the UK at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. With seven years' experience in strategic communications, he specialises in delivering communications that shape perceptions, change behaviours, and build resilience against information threats- including counter-terrorism and FIMI operations - for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO).

Laure Salmona is a feminist activist, author, and expert on gender-based violence. She is the co-founder and executive director of Féministes contre le cyberharcèlement (Feminists Against Cyberharassment), a French organization dedicated to combating tech-facilitated gender-based violence.
Co-author, with Ketsia Mutombo, of "Politiser les cyberviolences. Une lecture intersectionnelle des inégalités de genre sur Internet" (Politicizing Cyberviolence: An Intersectional Reading of Gender Inequalities on the Internet), she examines digital spaces through the lens of gender, power, and systemic discrimination. Her work exposes and challenges the dynamics of domination embedded in online environments, aiming to foster safer and more inclusive digital ecosystems.

Maiko Ratiani holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations, a master's degree in European Studies and is currently pursuing a second master’s degree in Disinformation and Societal Resilience at the University of Tartu. She worked as a media literacy trainer and as head of the fact-checking unit at the Media Development Foundation. 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”.

Dr. Manuela Preoteasa is a lecturer and a media expert with the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, and the founder of the Association Digital Bridge, which was a member of the Brussels-based pan-European network of portals covering EU policies (2004-2025). ADB is currently providing media expertise and in international projects countering disinformation through AI tools, of which the most prominent are AI4Trust (www.ai-trust.eu) and PROMPT (disinfo-prompt.eu). 

Martha Stolze is research associate in the research group “Platform Algorithms and Digital Propaganda” at the Weizenbaum Institute (WI), PhD candidate at Free University Berlin and currently a visiting researcher at Hertie School. In her work she investigates gendered disinformation in Russian information influence, its resonance in Germany, and implications for platform regulation. For her work she has received a Best Abstract Award (ECREA) and Excellent Reviewer Award (ICA). Previously, she was a visiting researcher at University College London, worked at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, and holds an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford.

Prof. Dr. Natalia Vasilendiuc is a Professor at the University of Bucharest’s Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences. A comparative media scholar focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, her work examines journalists’ professional cultures, risk and uncertainty in the profession, and media literacy. She has co-authored recent country reports for the Safety of Journalists Index for Romania and Moldova (https://safetyofjournalists.org/index) and contributes to the Worlds of Journalism Study for both Romania and Moldova. (https://www.worldsofjournalism.org/).

Nino Robakidze is a freedom fighter, advocate for freedom of expression, and media enthusiast. With over 15 years of experience spanning journalism, media management, research and advocacy, civic activism, and project management, Nino has made significant contributions to the field. For the past seven years, Nino led the Europe Center of IREX SAFE Initiative while also serving as the Country Director for IREX Georgia until the recent closure of the Tbilisi office.
Nino collaborates with diverse initiatives and a broad network of global stakeholders to foster solidarity and partnership among journalists and civil society. Her efforts aim to build strong, collegial, and lasting relationships for a safer and freer media environment in Georgia and the wider Eurasia region.
At Transparency International – Georgia, Nino managed media programs, focusing on comprehensive research and advocacy initiatives related to civil society, media, freedom of expression, and vibrant information ecosystems.

Dr. Péter Krekó is a social psychologist, behavioural scientist and think-tanker specialising in disinformation, authoritarian influence, and democratic resilience. His work focuses on the psychological and institutional mechanisms behind the spread and impact of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and populist communication strategies, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. He explores how state and non-state actors exploit cognitive biases and political polarisation to destabilise liberal democracies—and what evidence-based counterstrategies can be employed in response. He is the Director and Co-Owner of Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based policy think tank, and leads Hungary’s national anti-disinformation hub (HDMO–Lakmusz), co-funded by the European Commission through the European Digital Media Observatory, hosted at the European University Institute.

Roslyn is head of the Digital Sphere unit in the Policy and Learning department at DW Akademie where she is responsible for DW Akademie’s digital strategy, driving innovation, knowledge management and developing concepts, methodologies, toolkits and networking on thematic topics such as media and information literacy, artificial intelligence, information integrity, digital rights and constructive dialogue.  

Roslyn has over 20 years of experience in international development and humanitarian aid mainly focusing on education, climate adaptation and communication.  She has lived and worked for many years in India, Kenya and Sudan. Roslyn has been working for DW Akademie specialising in media development, since 2015 and is based in Bonn. 

Sophie leads the public affairs and engagement work of the Appeals Centre Europe. She spent the last decade working in European public affairs in Brussels, among others as a consultant on platform regulation and digital policy, in an NGO and in the European Parliament. She has a background in European Studies and law and holds a LLM from Maastricht University. 

Stephan Mündges is the Coordinator of the EFCSN. He previously worked as the general manager of the Institute of Journalism at TU Dortmund University, Germany’s leading institute for university-based journalism education. He was also one of the coordinators of the German-Austrian Digital Media Observatory (GADMO) and was one of the hub representatives serving on the EDMO Executive Board. Before transitioning into academia, he worked for 12 years for the German public broadcaster ZDF, focusing on his reporting on digital policy, platform regulation and disinformation campaigns. Stephan has also worked as an external assessor for the IFCN.

Tamta Otiashvili is a government relations lead at LetsData - a AI-powered radar that detects Information operations and shielding governments, businesses and CSOs from disinformation campaigns. Tamta comes with 15+ years of experience in data-driven programming and strategic communications, and has a proven track record of supporting government institutions in strengthening communication, fostering collaboration, and leveraging data to drive impactful change. She holds a Master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a BA from Tbilisi State University in Public International Law. 

Valeriu Pașa is policy expert, senior analyst and chairman at the “WatchDog.MD” Community think-tank, a civil society organization. He started his career in 2007 as researcher, than served in public administration, practiced civic activism and later as a political consultant. He is specialized in advocacy and electoral practices, political developments, media policies, disinformation and propaganda countering. He has the experience of 2 presidential, 5 parliamentary and 8 local election campaigns as PR and
analysis consultant.

Victoire Rio is the founder and executive director of WHAT TO FIX and one of the world’s leading experts on social media monetization and its impact on information integrity.