Our Experts

Dr. Saleem Ali is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center and the Blue & Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment at the University of Delaware, where he chairs the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences. A member of the UN International Resource Panel and a National Geographic Explorer with fieldwork in over 160 countries, he has also been named a World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader.” His books include Soil to Foil, Earthly Order, and Treasures of the Earth.

Maria Avdeeva is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center, specializing in strategic communications, security, and resilience in conflict and crisis settings. With over a decade of experience in international consulting, civil society, and media, she specializes in identifying and responding to hostile information operations and shaping effective strategic narratives.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Maria has focused on documenting war crimes, amplifying ground-level insights with global audiences, and providing expert analysis on security and information warfare. Her work has been featured by CNN, BBC, NPR, CBC, DW, and other major international outlets.

Maria has led national communication campaigns, supported resilience initiatives, developed training programs on countering malign influence, and authored numerous articles on information threats and the evolving security landscape. She holds a Master’s degree in International Law and a postgraduate diploma in Strategic Communications from the Sympodium Institute.

Ambassador Eitvydas Bajarūnas is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is currently the Representative of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists to the European Economic and Social Committee (Brussels). He is a former Lithuanian MFA Political Director and former Lithuanian ambassador to Sweden, Russia and the UK. He is an international security expert with more than three decades of experience in foreign policy, NATO and EU affairs, hybrid threats, defense, and geopolitics. Until the summer of 2025, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA, Washington D.C.), where he focused on hybrid threat deterrence and developed policy recommendations for NATO, the EU, and democratic states. He remains a CEPA non-resident Senior Fellow. He is also an Associated Expert at the Vilnius-based Geopolitics and Security Studies Center (GSSC).

Andrew (Andy) Berrier is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He served for 30 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Colonel.  Mr. Berrier began his military career by serving in tank battalions in Europe, Iraq, and Kansas.  Later he served in a variety of strategic level assignments, including at three U.S. embassies in the former Soviet Union, at U.S. European Command, and on the U.S. Joint Staff at the Pentagon. After his Army career, Mr. Berrier worked as a military analyst in the U.S. intelligence community before retiring from federal service.  Mr. Berrier holds an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Indiana University and an MA in National Security Studies from the U.S. Army War College. 

Stephen Biddle is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University where he directs the Concentration in International Security and Diplomacy, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on military effectiveness, the conduct of war, and the role of technology in war. He has served on the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board, on General David Petraeus’ Joint Strategic Assessment Team in Baghdad in 2007, as a Senior Advisor to the Central Command Assessment Team in Washington in 2008-9, as a member of General Stanley McChrystal’s Initial Strategic Assessment Team in Kabul in 2009, and on a variety of other government advisory panels and analytical teams.

He lectures regularly at the U.S. Army War College and other military schools, and has presented testimony before congressional committees on a variety of defense policy issues. His most recent book is Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias(Princeton University Press, 2021). His book Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton University Press, 2004) won four prizes, including the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Award Silver Medal for 2005, and the 2005 Huntington Prize from Harvard University. He co-directs the Columbia Summer Workshop on Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS), and has won multiple teaching awards, most recently the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs Outstanding Teaching Award for 2025.

Colin P. Clarke is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and the Director of Research at The Soufan Group, where his research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security, and geopolitics. Prior to joining The Soufan Group, Clarke was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he spent a decade researching terrorism, insurgency, and criminal networks. At RAND, Clarke led studies on ISIS financing, the future of terrorism and transnational crime, and lessons learned from all insurgencies since the end of the World War II. He serves on the editorial board of three of the leading scholarly journals in the field of terrorism studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Perspectives on Terrorism.

Clarke has a Ph.D. in international security policy from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA).

Dr. Darrell Driver is the Director of the Arctic Initiative at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and the Co-Director of the Advanced Strategic Art Program at the U.S. Army War College. He served previously as the Director of the Army War College’s Regional Studies Program, Director of the European Studies Program, and Deputy Chair of the Department of National Security and Strategy. Other positions Dr. Driver has held include Deputy Director of Strategy for U.S. European Command, Defense Policy Advisor to the U.S. Mission to NATO, and Strategic Planner in the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. He was also on the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

Dr. Driver is the author of the book Sparta in Babylon: Case Studies in the Public Philosophies of Soldiers and Civilians and a number of articles and book chapters on subjects related to civil-military relations and European Security. He was a 2009 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and an Academic Year 2015 Army War College Fellow. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of Notre Dame and a Masters and Doctorate in Political Science from Syracuse University.

Christopher M Faulkner is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is an assistant professor of national security affairs in the College of Distance Education at the U.S. Naval War College. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow with the National Security Affairs Department at NWC. Before joining NWC, he served as a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Central Florida and as a visiting assistant professor at Centre College. He earned his Ph.D. in security studies from the University of Central Florida and was a Minerva-Jennings Randolph Peace and Security Scholar with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). His research focuses on militant recruitment, private military companies, and civil-military relations.

Amb. Shota Gvineria is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global. He is a subject matter expert in national security strategy, NATO integration, hybrid threats, cyber defense policy, and democratic resilience.

Amb. Gvineria has been working in various positions in Georgia’s public sector. Among other positions, Shota Gvineria served as the Deputy Secretary at the National Security Council of Georgia. He held the position of the Foreign Policy Advisor to the Minister of Defense of Georgia in 2015-16. Through 2010-14, he served as the Ambassador of Georgia to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 2010 he was promoted to the position of a Director of European Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. Prior to that, he served as a Head of NATO Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. In the period from 2006 until 2008, Shota Gvineria was posted as the Counselor of the Georgian Mission to NATO.

Amb. Gvineria joined the Baltic Defence College as the lecturer in Defence and Cyber Studies in July of 2019. He is regularly teaching and conducting training programs in several civilian and defence universities around the Euro-Atlantic area. He is also a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Research Center since 2017. Amb. Gvineria holds MA in Strategic Security Studies from Washington’s National Defense University. He also earned his MA in International Relations from the Diplomatic School of Madrid and Public Administration from the Georgian Technical University.

Maximilian (Max) Hess is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is an analyst, writer, adviser and foreign policy consultant. He is the founder of Ementena Advisory, a London-based political risk firm. His first book, Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West, was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2023 and was awarded the U.S.-Russia Relations Book Prize.

Max has also held fellowships with the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. Additionally, Max serves as the Russia, Eurasia & Geo-Economics Expert at Aurora Macro Strategies in New York and writes a column for Al Jazeera.

Max graduated from Franklin & Marshall College and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. He has given lectures at Harvard University's Davis Center, the US Army War College, the Foreign Service Institute and University College London, amongst others. 

Harun Karčić is a Bosnian journalist, analyst, and former executive producer at Al Jazeera Balkans, specializing in geopolitics, foreign influence, and security dynamics in the Western Balkans. He has reported extensively on political Islam, radicalization, and great-power competition in Southeast Europe, and his work has been featured by major international outlets and research institutes. He is also co-founder and Vice Chairman of the Sarajevo Security Conference and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the New Lines Institute. His forthcoming book, Balkan Muslims and the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2025), examines historical and contemporary ties between the two regions.

Ambassador Batu Kutelia is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a former Ambassador to the USA and former Head of Georgia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. He is a member of the board at the Atlantic Council of Georgia and Professor at the Alte University, Tbilisi, Georgia. He was co-author and TV co-host of the Foreign Affairs talk show at the Mtavari TV in 2020-2021. He is frequent contributor to the major national and international TV, printed and online media on the issues of national and international security, Russian hybrid warfare, defense and security sector reform and policies. He was Draper Hills Summer Fellow at the Stanford University in 2022, the Next Generation Leader Fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, ASU, Washington DC in 2013-14, and NATO Defense College Research Fellow in 2001, Rome, Italy. During his 17 years of public service from 1996 to 2013, he served in numerous senior diplomatic and national security positions, including Undersecretary of the National Security Council of Georgia, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America, Canada and Mexico, First Deputy Minister of Defense (in 2008 during the war with Russia), Deputy Minister and other political-military positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has received awards from two Presidents of Georgia for conducting important negotiations and exceptional public service. He has been recognized by the US 111th Congress for reinforcing and advancing US-Georgia strategic partnership. Before turning to his diplomatic and political career Mr. Kutelia studied physics and holds a PhD in physics. However, he also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. Mr. Kutelia is fluent in English, Russian and Georgian languages.

Klara Vlahčević Lisinski is a Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. She is an award-winning journalist, analyst, and strategic content leader with over 15 years of experience at the intersection of geopolitics, conflict, and humanitarian affairs. A Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship recipient for her journalistic work, she has reported from more than ten conflict and transition zones, and currently serves as Senior Fellow at New Lines Institute. At NYU School of Journalism, as a visiting Scholar, she is pioneering a program training journalists to produce work admissible as evidence before the ICC and ICJ. She holds an MA in Advanced European and International Studies, and is completing a second MA in Global Security and Strategy at SOAS University of London.

Anna Mikulska is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. She is Senior Vice President and Head of Research & Strategic Intelligence at CGCN Group, where she leads a dedicated research and intelligence unit focused on global energy markets, geopolitical risk, and regulatory strategy. With over a decade of experience at the nexus of U.S. and international energy policy, Anna advises senior government officials, corporate leaders and think-tank partners on the energy-security-technology interface. 

Prior to joining CGCN, Anna served as a Research Staff Member at the Science & Technology Policy Institute (STPI/IDA), delivering research on energy markets and technology policy to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She was also a Fellow in Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute, where she co-directed the Energy and Geopolitics in Eurasia program, and a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, where she led graduate seminars and supervised student research.

She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Houston, an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Windsor (Canada) and a Master of Laws from Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland).

Sean Murray is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He has more than 12 years of experience as a diplomat and intelligence analyst focusing primarily on Ukraine, Russia, the Baltics and the Western Balkans.  He has been posted in Vilnius, Moscow, the U.K., and Washington, D.C., and is a winner of the State Department's Superior Honor Award and DoD's Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award, as well as a Fulbright research fellowship.

Luis Navarro is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He served as Senior Resident Director for the National Democratic Institute of International Affairs in Georgia (2009-2014) and as both presidential campaign manager and the last chief of staff for then-United States Senator Joe Biden (2007-2009).

Lisa Noskova is a Research Associate at Delphi Global Research Center, where she focuses on US military assistance, US–Ukraine relations, and US–Russia relations. She worked with Dr. Bob Hamilton on research and data collection for his recent book China–Russia Relations: The Dance of the Dragon and the Bear (Springer, 2024), and she is currently supporting his new book project examining the effectiveness of U.S. military assistance in deterring aggression. Previously, Lisa was a Research Associate at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP) at The Fletcher School, contributing to the Rising Power Alliances Project. This project analyzed how rising powers form alliances, the durability of these alignments -- particularly within BRICS -- and their implications for the US. 

Giorgi Odoshashvili is a Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a PhD Fellow, lecturer, and doctoral candidate at Ilia State University in Tbilisi and the British University in Georgia. He works in the fields of Politics and International Relations, focusing on European politics, the Black Sea region, the South Caucasus, and China’s role in regional and international affairs. His doctoral research explores the perceptions of Georgian and Armenian political elites toward cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, particularly in relation to connectivity, development finance, sovereignty, security dependencies, and geopolitical alignment. His work contributes to debates on small-state foreign policy, external influence, and regional security in the Black Sea and South Caucasus.

Maia Otarashvili is the Vice President of Delphi Global Research Center. She previously served as the Eurasia Program Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Maia is co-editor of a 2017 volume Does Democracy Matter? The United States and Global Democracy Support (FPRI). Her research focuses on geopolitics and security of the Black Sea-Caucasus region, Russian foreign policy, and the post-Soviet conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Maia holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College, London, and an M.A. in Globalization, Development and Transition from the University of Westminster in London, with emphasis on post-authoritarian transitions.

Bruce Pannier is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a longtime journalist and correspondent covering Central Asia. He currently writes Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s blog, Qishloq Ovozi, and appears regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL. Prior to joining RFE/RL in 1997, Bruce worked at the Open Media Research Institute in Prague. In 1992, he led a sociological project in Central Asia sponsored by the University of Manchester and the Soros Cultural Initiative Foundation. During that time he lived in villages in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Bruce studied at Tashkent State University in the summer of 1990 and studied at Columbia University under Professor Edward Allworth. Bruce has also written for The Economist, Janes Intelligence, Oxford Analytica, Freedom House, The Cairo Review, the FSU Oil & Gas Monitor, and Energo Weekly. 

Raphael Parens is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center and a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). He is an international security analyst focused on Africa and Eurasia. Parens has been published in Foreign Affairs, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) Sentinel, War on the Rocks, and FPRI. His forthcoming book, entitled Moscow’s Mercenaries: The Rise and Fall of the Wagner Group and co-authored with Dr. Colin P. Clarke and Dr. Christopher Faulkner, will be published in the spring of 2026. 

George Scutaru is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is one of the founders and the CEO of the New Strategy Center (www.newstrategycenter.ro), the leading Romanian think tank in security and foreign affairs field, founded in July 2015. He started his professional career in journalism, in Bucharest, then as a press correspondent to Moscow, before he became the general director of a press monitoring and consultancy agency in Romania. Between 2004 and 2014 he was a member of the Parliament of Romania, the Chamber of Deputies. In that period, he successively held the positions of Secretary (2004-2008) and Vice-Chairman (2008-2014) of the Committee on Defense and National Security. Between 2014 and 2015 he was national security advisor to the President of Romania. On behalf of the President, Scutaru coordinated the entire negotiation process for the national agreement, assumed in 2015 by all Romanian political parties from the Parliament, for a 2% of the GDP financing of the defense sector, which triggered an extensive modernization process of the Romanian Armed Forces and enhanced the interoperability with NATO and the US. George graduated from the Faculty of History (University of Bucharest) and holds a master’s degree in International Relations. He also graduated from the National Defense College and the National Intelligence College in Bucharest, and also attended training courses and programs at the NATO College in Rome, the G.C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and the US Department of State. Area of expertise: Russia, security challenges in the Black Sea region. He is author of several studies dedicated to Russia’s strategy in the Black Sea region, Russian hybrid warfare and aspects related to energy security in the wider Black Sea region.

Ambassador Vasil (Dato) Sikharulidze is a Senior Fellow at the Delphi Global Research Center and the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), specializing in Black Sea security, strategic connectivity, Russian hybrid warfare, and Euro-Atlantic integration. He brings over two decades of high-level experience in diplomacy, defense, and public policy. From 2005 to 2008, he served as Georgia’s Ambassador to the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and later as Minister of Defense of Georgia. His earlier roles include Deputy Minister of Defense, Undersecretary of the National Security Council, Deputy Head of Georgia’s Mission to NATO, and Head of the NATO Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ambassador Sikharulidze  currently directs the Master’s Program in Security Studies at Alte University and lectures at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and George C Marshall center Alumni scholar. His recent publications address strategic connectivity in Eurasia, security sector reform, and Russia’s geopolitical influence in the post-Soviet space.

He holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a medical degree in psychiatry from Tbilisi State Medical University.

Olena Snigyr is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. She is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute. Her current research focuses on the analysis of Russia’s strategic narratives and information influence, particularly in the Global South.

Until May 2022, she served as Head of Communications and International Cooperation at the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. From 2001 to 2017, she worked at the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine (NISS), where she headed the Foreign Policy Department (2008–2011) and the Europe Sector within the Foreign Policy Department (2011–2013). In 2018–2019, she was a leading specialist at the Center for International Studies, Hennadiy Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine.

Her expertise encompasses Russia’s foreign policy—its interventionism, covert influence methods, and use of historical memory as a policy tool—as well as European security, Ukrainian foreign policy, and the evolving dynamics of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

András Tóth-Czifra is a Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He is a political and risk analyst based in New York City.

He previously served as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA); as an analyst in the Berlin-based European Stability Initiative; as a policy advisor for Hungarian members of the S&D group in the European Parliament as well as a freelance political analyst working with consultancies. He has also been working in the private sector as an analyst and consultant focusing on security and cybersecurity issues related to Europe and Russia. He specializes in Russian and Eastern European politics and regularly publishes analyses on Russian affairs, including for Riddle Russia, The Moscow Times as well as his analytical blog, No Yardstick.

Dan Whitman is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center. He has served in Copenhagen, Madrid, Pretoria, Port-au-Prince and Yaoundé as Foreign Service Officer, with shorter tours in eight other African capitals.  He was planning officer for the White House Africa summits of 2014 and 2022. He has taught foreign relations, African Studies, and international communication at American University and George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Dan accompanied francophone visitors on official tours of the U.S. as French interpreter, 1970-82, then was program officer at a Washington-based institute. He lived and taught in Brazzaville, Congo during his Fulbright year of 1980-81. His books and articles range in topics from Haiti, Africa, European stringed instruments and oral history. He holds the PhD from Brown University, 1979.