Security + Geopolitics

Bennet Nicolaisen is a Berlin-based program assistant with GMF Risk and Strategy.

Before joining GMF, Nicolaisen worked at the European Parliament’s Directorate General for External Policies and its Transatlantic Relations and Global Governance Unit, and as a program assistant in Aspen Institute Germany’sTransatlantic Program. He also interned at the Bertelsmann Stiftung and its Sovereign Europe Program, the Hamburg offices of a member of the Bundestag, and the office of a member of the Hamburg state parliament.

Nicolaisen holds a master’s degree, with a focus on transatlantic relations, in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Fulbright scholar.

Gabriel Mitchell is a visiting fellow with GMF South and director of strategic initiatives at the University of Notre Dame’s academic center in Jerusalem.

Mitchell is an expert on matters pertaining to energy security, connectivity, Israeli foreign policy, and Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics. He previously covered these topics for think tanks including Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies and the Hudson Institute, and for Shalem College. He has written widely for publications including Ha’aretz, War on the Rocks, The National Interest, Newlines, and via his Substack newsletter, Invisible Boundaries.

Mitchell holds a master’s degree in political science from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a bachelor’s degree in history from The Ohio State University. He is completing his PhD at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs.