Our Experts

Experts displayed by Region: Western Europe

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).

Francesca Arcostanzo

Digital Analysis Unit Lead

Francesca Arcostanzo is the Lead of the Digital Analysis Unit at ISD, working to ensure our research methods, tools and approaches in the digital analysis space remain consistent and innovative.

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.

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.

Julia Ebner

Senior Resident Research Fellow

Julia Ebner's research focuses on the far-right, online radicalisation, hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy myths. Based on undercover research within extremist movements, she published two bestselling books that have been translated into multiple languages, and recently published Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over has just been released.