Security + Geopolitics

Vicky Masson is a program operations manager for geostrategy. She works closely with the senior vice president, GMF Geostrategy to coordinate and manage a team of 60+ experts spread across six GMF offices. She also assists in strategy and coordination with the executive teams.

Prior to joining GMF in 2021, Masson was an intern at the Agence Française de Développement, where she contributed to a research project on the intervention of international stakeholders in countries in crisis, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. She holds a master’s degree in international security at Sciences Po Paris, where she specialized in diplomacy and African studies,

Jason Steinbaum was formerly Visiting Fellow at GMF.

James Bindenagel is a U.S. Ambassador (ret.), whose 30-year Foreign Service career included assignments in West, East, and united Germany. He is currently a Senior Professor at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategy, and Integration Studies at Bonn University.

Sophie Arts is a fellow with GMF’s Geostrategy North team, where she leads the workstream’s research on Arctic security and geopolitics. As part of her portfolio, she covers Nordic security, North American homeland defense, and regional cooperation with allies and partners.

In 2017, Arts joined GMF's Washington, DC-based security and defense policy team, focusing on transatlantic security within and outside NATO. Her prior research covered the alliance’s partnerships and flexible formats, the impact of emerging technologies on NATO defense and deterrence, the dynamics of escalation within the cyber domain, and strategic stability in a multipolar world. 

Arts previously worked as a research assistant at the Atlantic Council and as a trainee in GMF’s Brussels office. She has a background in political journalism, writing for Spiegel Online International and Kantar Media. Originally from Germany, she holds a master’s degree from Humboldt University in Berlin and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Freiburg. She spent two years studying in the United States, at Connecticut College and at the University of Virginia, where she also worked as a research assistant in the media studies department and in the university’s Center for Politics, supporting Larry J. Sabato's work on "The Kennedy Half-Century".