Black Sea

Hanna Kovhan is a senior program coordinator based in Berlin. She supports GMF work on fellowship and alumni programs for leaders from the United States and Europe. The programs include the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, the Manfred Wörner Seminar, the Policy Designers Network, the Leadership Lab, the Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network, and alumni programs for participants in these groups.

Hanna earned her bachelor’s degree in translation studies from the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine, and holds a master’s degree in intercultural communication studies from the European University Viadrina as well as an executive diploma in the art of diplomacy from the European Academy of Diplomacy. In addition to her studies in Germany and Poland, Hanna spent a year studying international relations at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in Georgia and a semester at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Hanna is also a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Alumna.

As senior vice president of democracy at GMF, Laura Thornton leads teams whose programs defend and promote democracy. She oversees the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), through which GMF tracks and analyzes malign internal and external influence operations that target democracies worldwide and builds strategies to thwart them. 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. The trusts bolster democratic resilience through civic education, media literacy, election monitoring, public awareness campaigns, and media and watchdog activities.

Thornton guides GMF’s global democracy initiatives to build communities of practices, share lessons, and forge transnational alliances on democratic innovation. Her research and analysis focus on authoritarianism, far-right illiberal movements, and democratic decline. She participates in numerous democracy networks and working groups as a leader and expert.