Middle East

Ambassador Brent Hardt is a resident senior fellow at GMF who brings 35 years of experience leading at all levels of government. He has guided five embassies as ambassador, chargé d’affaires, and deputy chief of mission, and served as foreign policy advisor to US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, working closely with allies to meet vital security challenges. As professor and senior advisor at the US Naval War College, he taught national security strategy and policy and developed a seminar on the evolution of modern Europe.

Hardt joined the US Foreign Service in 1988, serving in Berlin, the Hague, Rome, Paris, Canada, and the Caribbean. He was an exchange diplomat with the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense in 1993. In Washington, he served as Team Leader for NATO Policy in the State Department’s Office of European Political and Security Affairs, where he was responsible for NATO enlargement, NATO-Ukraine, and European Security and Defense policy issues.

Over the course of his career, Hardt has received multiple Senior Performance Awards, the Director General's Award for Reporting, five Superior Honor Awards, and three Meritorious Honor Awards. He also received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the US Special Operations Command Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in law and diplomacy and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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.

Kristina Kausch is deputy managing director and senior fellow, GMF South. She is also GMF’s representative in Madrid. Her research focuses on Europe’s relations with its neighborhood and broader geopolitical trends in the Middle East.

Prior to joining GMF, she held positions with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Spanish think tank FRIDE, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the German development cooperation agency GIZ. She has provided articles and commentary to a range of outlets including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, Politico, El País, Middle East Eye, Tagesspiegel, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.