Monika Bičkauskaite was formerly Program Assistant at GMF.
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Security + Geopolitics
Gesine Weber is a fellow on GMF’s Geostrategy team, where she works on European security and defense issues. Based in Paris, she focuses on EU defense initiatives, security and defense policy of the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Europe's role in the global order.
During a 2024 fellowship at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Weber led a research project on European balancing in the Indo-Pacific in the context of US-China competition.
Prior to joining GMF, she worked as a defense policy adviser at the German parliament and as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Shanghai. Weber is pursuing a PhD in defense studies at King’s College London, where she is part of the European Foreign Policy Research Group and contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy. She is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for International Security.
Weber holds a master’s degree in European affairs from Sciences Po in Paris and another master’s degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her writing and commentary appears regularly in English, French, and German in European and other international media, including the BBC, the Neue Züercher Zeitung, Politico, and France 24.
William McIlhenny is a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He was formerly at the White House as a director at the National Security Council, and at the US Department of State as a senior policy advisor. He also served as a member of the secretary of state's policy planning staff.
Jim Kolbe was formerly Resident Distinguished Fellow at GMF.
Aaron Friedberg was formerly Visiting Senior Fellow at GMF.
Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is GMF’s acting president. In her previous capacity as senior vice president for geostrategy, she led GMF’s geostrategy policy and risk advisory initiatives across Europe, the United States, and the Indo-Pacific. Her areas of expertise encompass European affairs, transatlantic and international relations, and corporate diplomacy.
With more than 15 years’ experience in senior advisory and executive roles, de Hoop Scheffer advises governments, multinational corporations, and financial institutions on the political, geopolitical, and macroeconomic trends that shape their operations and strategies. She helps them develop early-warning systems and forward-looking decision-making processes.
de Hoop Scheffer serves as an independent board director on the Supervisory Board of Meridiam and the French Treasury Strategic Committee, among other bodies. She is also chair of the advisory board of the French Chief of Defense Staff and a member of the board of the France-Nederland Cultuurfonds, the advisory board of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, and the editorial board of The Washington Quarterly. She is a member of the Trilateral Commission.
Prior to joining GMF in 2012 as its Paris office director and as a senior fellow, de Hoop Scheffer held key advisory positions in the French government, academia, and international organizations, including with the French foreign ministry’s policy planning staff (2009-2011), NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (2010-2013), the French Ministry of Defense (2006-2009), and UN peacekeeping operations (2006). She also served as an associate professor at Sciences Po Paris and as a research fellow at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales.
A dual French-Dutch citizen, de Hoop Scheffer holds a PhD in political science from Sciences Po Paris and is the author of “Hamlet en Irak”. She is a frequent public speaker and writer.
Emiliano Alessandri was formerly Visiting Senior Fellow at GMF.
Bruce Stokes is a visiting senior fellow at GMF. He is the coauthor of GMF’s two recent studies on rebuilding Ukraine and senior editor of the 2022 Transatlantic Trends survey. From 2019 to 2021, he was the executive director of GMF’s Transatlantic Task Force, which produced "Together or Alone? Choices and Strategies for Transatlantic Relations for 2021 and Beyond". He was also a GMF senior fellow from 2010 to 2012, wrote the 2009 Transatlantic Trends survey, and authored two GMF task force reports, "The Case for Renewing Transatlantic Capitalism", and "A New Era for Transatlantic Trade Leadership".
Stokes was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations between 2017 and 2020, and remains a member. He is also an associate fellow at Chatham House. From 2012 to 2019 he was the director of Pew Research Center's Global Economic Attitudes and coauthored numerous public opinion surveys. Prior to this, he was for 23 years the international economics correspondent for the National Journal, a Washington, DC-based public policy magazine.
Stokes was a Japan Society Fellow in 1987 and 1989, living in and reporting from Japan. He was a member of President Clinton's Commission on United States-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy in 1997 and wrote its final report, "Building American Prosperity in the 21st Century". He is coauthor of "America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked" and author of "Helping Ourselves: Local Solutions to Global Problems". He edited "Partners or Competitors", "Trade Strategies for a New Era", and "Open For Business: Creating a Transatlantic Marketplace".
Stokes was honored in 2006 by the Coalition of Service Industries for his reporting on services issues. In 2004, he was chosen by International Economy magazine as one of the most influential China watchers in the US press. In 1995, he was picked by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the "Best on Business" reporters in Washington, and, in 1989, he won the coveted John Hancock award for excellence in business and economics reporting for his series on the impact of the rising yen on the Japanese economy.
Stokes is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Douglas Hengel is a visiting senior fellow contributing to GMF’s work on global energy, climate, and resource challenges, with a particular focus on European energy security. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.
As a former U.S. foreign service officer, Hengel served with the U.S. Department of State for more than 35 years. Among his postings, he was deputy chief of mission in Rome and in Bratislava, and also served at the U.S. embassies in the Czech Republic, Peru, and Venezuela. In Washington, Hengel worked as deputy assistant secretary of state for energy, sanctions and commodities from 2007 to 2010, where his responsibilities included formulating and advancing U.S. international energy security policy, including relations with the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. Hengel chaired the Standing Committee on Long-Term Cooperation at the IEA and also worked extensively on Iran sanctions.
Hengel has a bachelor's from Colgate University and a master's in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.