Our Experts

Our analysts and researchers consistently feature in international media speaking on our areas of expertise focusing on mis- and disinformation, polarisation, hate and extremism. Search through ISD’s experts by clicking through our issue areas and regional focuses.

Jakob Guhl

Senior Manager, Policy & Research

Jakob Guhl works within the Digital Research Unit and with ISD Germany. His research focuses on the far-right, Islamist extremism, hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Jared Holt

Senior Research Manager

Jared Holt is a Senior Research Manager overseeing ISD’s work on hate and extremist movements in the US. He draws on his experience as an investigative reporter to help explain extremism's influence on politics, safety and democracy.

Katherine Keneally

Senior Research Manager

Senior Research Manager Katherine Keneally has extensive experience conducting open-source investigations and research related to extremism and hate across the ideological spectrum, with an emphasis on identifying threats online.

Ciarán O’Connor

Senior Analyst

Ciarán is a Senior Analyst at ISD that specialises in using open-source research to track and monitor disinformation and extremism online, with a particular focus on far-right activity and communication across open and closed networks and platforms.

Kevin D. Reyes

Senior OSINT Specialist

Kevin D. Reyes is a Senior OSINT Specialist in ISD's Digital Analysis Unit, where he leads open-source investigations methods and researches online hate, extremism and disinformation.

Julia Smirnova

Senior Analyst

Julia Smirnova is a Senior Analyst at ISD and ISD Germany, focusing on proliferation of disinformation, conspiracy myths, hate speech and extremist ideologies online.

Aoife Gallagher

Analyst

Aoife Gallagher is an Analyst on ISD’s Digital Analysis Unit, focusing on the intersection between far-right extremism, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Łukasz Janulewicz

Analyst

Łukasz Janulewicz is an Analyst at ISD, focusing on climate disinformation in Poland, Germany and the UK. His experience includes working in government, research and education in Germany, Poland and Hungary. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent.

Christian Schwieter

Fellow

Christian Schwieter is a Fellow at ISD and a PhD candidate at the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University, where he investigates the impact of European platform governance efforts on far-right activity on social media.

Marisa Wengeler

Educator at the Business Council for Democracy, ISD Germany

Marisa Wengeler is an Educator at the Business Council for Democracy (BC4D), an adult education project about digital citizenship. She trains employees on building resilience against hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy narratives online. Previously, she worked with different publishing houses on subscription and audience engagement strategies. She holds an M.A. in Journalism and Communication Science from the Free University of Berlin, where she mainly studied mobilisation strategies of right-wing extremist actors in digital networks.