Democracy

Melissa Hooper is a deputy managing director and senior fellow with GMF's Strategic Democracy Initiatives. She leads the team’s Rule of Law Action Network, which works to devise policy responses and solutions to issues affecting justice-sector institutions and actors. She is an attorney and policy expert with over 20 years’ experience in accountability law, high-impact litigation, and human rights advocacy. She was previously a senior adviser at USAID, led policy advocacy at Human Rights First, and served as the director for Russia at the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative office in Moscow. She also was a founding member of GMF's Transatlantic Democracy Working Group, which focuses on responses to democratic backsliding in Europe and the United States.

Hooper has successfully litigated complex domestic and international cases, worked with Congress and the California state legislature to author and pass legislation, and managed coalitions and initiatives across government, academia, and civil society. She has testified repeatedly before Congress on issues of accountability for rights violations and corruption, democratic resilience, and national security. She has led international teams to secure justice in human rights cases and has contributed to policy development at the highest levels, including co-chairing the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Human Rights Working Group. She has worked alongside lawyers and watchdogs in numerous countries to develop legal and policy responses to anti-democratic government action, and she initiated the first USAID program on democratic backsliding in consolidated democracies.

Miruna Gheorghe is a Bucharest-based senior program coordinator. She supports the implementation of EU-funded initiatives, including the Enhancing the Resilience of Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership (ERICS) project, which advances civil society resilience in the Eastern Partnership region. She leads strategic communications and EU visibility efforts for GMF’s Bucharest office, contributes to grantmaking processes, and coordinates convenings, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement activities in the wider Black Sea region.

Prior to joining GMF, Gheorghe worked with NaTakallam, the UN Youth Delegation of Romania, and other international organizations. She contributed to initiatives focused on human rights, civic engagement, and cross-cultural cooperation.

Gheorghe holds a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in security and defense. Her academic and professional interests center on security dynamics in the wider Black Sea region and the Middle East, with a focus on regional security, defense, geopolitics, and international affairs. She speaks Romanian, French, and German.