Ty Melnick is a Washington, DC-based program coordinator at GMF. She supports the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, GMF's flagship leadership program, and assists in implementing other leadership program initiatives.
Melnick holds a bachelor's degree in international studies with specializations in international political economy and global development from American University.
George Noll is a member of the US senior foreign service with the rank of Minister Counselor. He joined the Department of State in 1997 and most recently served as head of the Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem.
His other assignments include deputy minister counselor for economic affairs at the US Embassy in Seoul, counselor for global affairs at the US Embassy in Berlin, interim chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Minsk, the transatlantic diplomacy fellow at the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin, senior energy officer at the US Embassy in Moscow, and deputy political/economic counselor at the US Embassy in Oslo. He also served in Istanbul and in Washington, DC on the Russia and Nordic/Baltic desks.
Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar is a Visiting Distinguished Fellow with GMF Technology. She is the chair of the Steering Group of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group IT Coalition, a multinational IT and cyber defense assistance format. She also chairs the board of directors at the Global Cyber Alliance. Previously, she was the director of the Digital Society Institute at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. From 2018 to 2021, she served as ambassador for cyber diplomacy and director general of the Department of Cyber Diplomacy at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she led Estonia's efforts to promote norms and international law to guide the behavior of states in their cyber activities. She also contributed to several UN working groups on cybersecurity. Prior to that, she worked as head of the Cyber Policy Coordination Unit at the European External Action Service, where she led and coordinated EU external relations on cyber issues and co-led the preparation of European Cybersecurity Strategies. She established EU strategic cyber dialogues with the US, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and a number of international organizations. She also launched the EU's global cyber capacity-building programs and led the development of the EU Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox to strengthen the EU's response to malicious cyber activity. In 2011, she was assigned to the NATO International Staff to prepare NATO's Cyber Defence Policy.