European Cybersecurity Fellowship 2023-2024

Alžběta Bajerová is a threat analyst at NATO HQ’s Cyber Threat Analysis Branch, where she provides advisory to NATO’s leadership on cyber-enabled threats. She focuses on topics of cyber defence, state-sponsored cyber activities and cyber-enabled influence, including as a Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs in Prague. She has over five years of experience working in the public sector on defence-related issues, including at NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency, and the Embassy of the Czech Republic in China.

Nils Brinker is a researcher at the Digital Society Institute (DSI) at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Berlin). His current research focuses on systematizing cybersecurity law to strengthen operational cyber resilience through more coherent and effective regulation. Before joining the DSI, he worked as a data protection specialist in the private insurance sector.

Cat (Catherine) Easdon is a researcher and security engineer at Dynatrace in Austria, where she focuses on privacy engineering, translating law and policy into code to protect users. Cat’s background is in research at the intersection of privacy and security. Previously, she worked on CPU attacks and mitigations at Graz University of Technology, investigating how hardware implementation details lead to timing or power consumption differences that leak sensitive data within software.

Amy Ertan is a Cyber and Hybrid Policy Officer at NATO Headquarters where she supports the development of cyber policies and initiatives across the Alliance. Amy holds a PhD in Information Security from Royal Holloway University of London, where her doctoral research focused on the security implications of artificial intelligence in military contexts. Her broader research interests in cyber strategy and emerging security challenges have led to publications on topics including national cyber capabilities, military exercising, offensive cyber and cyber risk management.

Aideen Fay is a Senior Security Software Engineer on the Microsoft Threat Hunting team. Aideen leads the team’s investments into tooling and automation, enabling effective hunting for adversaries across Microsoft’s rapidly growing cloud estate. This involves developing statistical techniques, machine learning models, and advanced visualizations that can detect subtle signs of adversary activity in over 100 petabytes of data every day. Aideen is passionate about systems thinking and using data science and mathematics to help humans understand and model complex system behaviour.

Jacopo Franceschini is a Ph.D. Candidate at the International Relations Department of Kadir Has University (Istanbul), focusing on cybersecurity and cyber healthcare policy and regulation in Turkey and the Mediterranean region. Differences and commonalities among strategies, approaches, and legislation in cybersecurity in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries are his main areas of expertise and interest.

Elena Kaiser works as International relations advisor for the National Cybersecurity Agency of Italy. Previously, she worked as legal and policy advisor for the Cybersecurity Agency of the Ministry of Economy in Luxembourg.

During her work, she gained broad experience on international and European cybersecurity matters, including negotiations of international treaties (AHC on cybercrime) and policy processes (OEWG, IGF). She also managed several cybersecurity capacity building and gender inclusion projects.

Mamuka Kirkitadze is a Digital Manager at the London-based communications agency Zinc Network. Among other things, he’s responsible for conducting research using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) on various topics. He also occupies the position of Policy Analyst at the Global Foundation for Cyber Studies and Research on part-time bases. In this role, he focuses on researching the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity. Currently, Mamuka represents the ECCRI at the Community of Democracies (CoD) Working Group on Democracy and Technology (WGD&T).

Ingunn Helene Landsend Monsen is a Scientific Researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment where she works with analyzing technological trends and the implications these may have for future military operations. She holds an IntM in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies awarded by a consortium of three universities under the Erasmus Mundus umbrella; Glasgow University, Dublin City University and Charles University Prague.

Katharine Palmer is a Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst at Security Alliance. As well as producing threat landscape analysis for a wide range of clients, she specialises in assessing the relationship between geopolitical developments and the cyber threat landscape. She has authored several research papers, including an analysis of cyber threats to African financial services for the World Bank and authoritarian state use of spyware.

Lena Riecke is a PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs. Her research is situated at the intersection of law, intelligence studies, and cybersecurity. It investigates regimes for governing the market for cyber surveillance technologies (viz. spyware).

Jasmin Stadler is works in Swiss law enforcement as a digital forensics specialist. Previously, she served as a cyber defence project manager in the general secretariat of the Swiss Ministry of Defence, after having started her career in Blackrock’s Financial Markets Advisory.

Julian-Ferdinand Vögele is a threat researcher at Recorded Future’s Insikt Group with extensive experience in malware research, threat hunting, and intelligence. Julian-Ferdinand’s focus lies on malware analysis and the development of detections for proactive identification of malicious infrastructure.

Nicolas Zahn is studied political science, public law, and economics at the University of Zürich (B.A) and international affairs at the Graduate Institute Geneva and George Washington University Washington D.C. (M.A). He is a long-time member and frequent contributor for the Swiss-based think-tanks foraus and reatch and publishes regularly on various aspects of digital transformation and politics.