Our Experts

Experts displayed by Region: North America

Sasha Havlicek

Co-Founder and CEO

Sasha Havlicek is Co-Founder and CEO of ISD, having spearheaded ISD’s pioneering research and data analysis, digital education, policy advisory, training, tech and communications programmes.

Moustafa Ayad

Executive Director; Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA)

Moustafa Ayad is Executive Director at ISD for Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA).

Jiore Craig

Resident Senior Fellow, Digital Integrity

Jiore Craig, a Resident Senior Fellow at ISD, has extensive experience in measuring the impact of influence campaigns on public opinion, and how to respond to the threat disinformation poses to democracy.

Jacob Davey

Head of Research & Policy, Far-right and Hate Movements

Jacob Davey is Head of Research & Policy for Far-right and Hate Movements at ISD.

Melanie Smith

Head of Research, ISD US

Melanie Smith is the Head of Research for ISD US. Based in Washington DC, she leads a team of analysts focused on detecting, exposing and mitigating the threats associated with online information operations. Melanie was previously the Director of Analysis at the network analytics firm Graphika, re-joining ISD in 2021 to expand the organization’s research portfolio in the US. Her recent work has focused on topics like state-backed influence campaigns, public health misinformation and election-related violence.

Katherine Keneally

Senior Research Manager, ISD US

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.

Kevin D. Reyes

Senior OSINT Specialist, ISD US

Kevin D. Reyes is a Senior OSINT Specialist at ISD, where he leads methodology for open-source investigations and researches online hate, extremism, conspiracy theories and disinformation.

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.

Cécile Simmons

Research Manager

Cécile Simmons is a Research Manager at ISD, specialising in malign influence operations targeting elections, public health and climate disinformation, far-right extremism and conspiracy theories.