Brussels

Kristine Berzina is the Washington, DC-based managing director of GMF Geostrategy North. She is responsible for leading programming on US, Nordic, Baltic, and Arctic security and defense issues, and provides analysis on NATO and US and European foreign policy.

Berzina also leads GMF’s Across America initiative, which takes European officials into the US heartland to build regional connections on security issues. She is a frequent commentator in international media, including The New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, France 24, Deutsche Welle, and The New Yorker. She is a co-host of Drošinātājs (The Fuse), a Ukraine-focused podcast and Latvian radio program.

Berzina previously worked on countering autocratic influence as head of GMF’s Alliance for Securing Democracy’s geopolitics team and, while based in Brussels and Berlin for the organization, on transatlantic security and energy issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Yale University and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge.

Peter Chase joined GMF’s Brussels office in September 2010 as a non-resident fellow and became a resident senior fellow in May 2016. His work focuses on the transatlantic economy with particular attention to trade and investment, digital and energy policies, and the EU’s economic relations with third countries.

Chase served as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for Europe from 2010-16; prior to this he was a U.S. diplomat with postings as minister-counselor for economic affairs in the U.S. Mission to the European Union, director of the State Department's office of EU affairs, chief of staff to the under secretary of economic affairs, and counselor and minister-counselor for economic affairs in the U.S. Embassy in London. 

Kadri Tastan is a nonresident senior fellow in GMF’s Brussels office. His research focuses on Türkiye, the EU, transatlantic relations, energy, climate, and trade. Prior to joining GMF, he was an expert on European affairs and environmental issues at the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB).

Tastan has also been an IPC Mercator fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and an adjunct professor at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris and a master’s degree in international relations from Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.

Bart M.J. Szewczyk (SHEF-chick) is a visiting senior fellow with GMF in Brussels focusing on international order, transatlantic relations, NATO, the European Union, Ukraine, Russia, and the United Nations. He also advises on European and global public policy at Covington & Burling LLP and teaches grand strategy at Sciences Po in Paris. 

Daniel Hegedüs is a GMF regional director, Transatlantic Trusts Central Europe focused on Central Europe. He writes and speaks extensively on populism and democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe, and the European and foreign affairs of the Visegrad countries. He is frequently quoted in outlets such as AFP, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Euractiv, EU Observer and Der Spiegel. He has studied political science, history, and European law at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and Humboldt University in Berlin.

Dr. Len Ishmael is the former ambassador of the Eastern Caribbean States to Belgium and to the European Union, and past president of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Committee of Ambassadors in Brussels. She is a former director for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, director general for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, alternate governor for the World Bank, and director for the Foundation - Leadership for Environment and Development of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.