Budapest Forum

Year: 2021

  • Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook

  • Diána Ürge-Vorsatz

    Diána Ürge-Vorsatz

    Diana Ürge-Vorsatz is a Professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Central European University (CEU).

    She was elected as Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in July 2023.

    Diana also holds an appointment to the Climate Policy Observatory of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, providing strategic guidance to one of Europe’s most climate-progressive nations.​

    In the Sixth Assessment cycle she served as Vice-Chair of IPCC’s Working Group III. (Mitigation). She was a Coordinating Lead Author in both the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (AR4 and AR5) of the IPCC. She is Vice President of the Hungarian Scientific Panel on Climate Change. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA and worked in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

  • Benjamin Novak

    Benjamin Novak is currently a doctoral candidate at the John Hopkins University.

    He was a reporter based in Budapest, Hungary at New York Times until 2022. He has reported from Hungary since 2013, and began reporting for The New York Times in 2018. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and now he is a doctoral student at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

  • Benedek Jávor

    Benedek Jávor

    Benedek Jávor is the Head of Representation at the Representation of Budapest in Brussels.

    He is a Hungarian environmentalist and a founding member of Dialogue for Hungary party (Párbeszéd Magyarországért). He is also a member of the European Parliament for Together – Dialogue for Hungary Alliance (Együtt – Párbeszéd Magyarországért Választási Szövetség). He is first vice-chair of the Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and is a substitute member of the Committee of Industry, Research and Energy. In the 2010 general elections, he won a seat in the Hungarian National Assembly and was Chair of the Sustainable Development Committee for most of his mandate. Furthermore, Benedek is a founding member of the environmental NGO Védegylet (Protect the Future!) and holds a PhD. in biology. He is the author of several articles and publications on environmental threats, ‘going green’, and the future of the Earth.

  • Ben Rhodes

  • Anne Applebaum (online)

    Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist, commentator on geo-politics and keynote speaker, Anne Applebaum examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape.

    Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Applebaum shares perspectives on, and the far-reaching implications of, today’s volatile world events. And as technology allows a new scale of media manipulation to authoritarian governments and changes the tenor of political discourse, she scrutinizes the misinformation, propaganda, and criminal exploitation that influence global affairs, as well.

    She is a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

    Director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute from 2011-2015, an international think tank, Applebaum is the co-founder of the institute’s Democracy Lab, an online partnership between the institute and Foreign Policy magazine. An adjunct fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis, she is former Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics.

  • Anna Lisa Boni

    Anna Lisa Boni has been secretary general of EUROCITIES since June 2014. She has 25 years of professional experience in EU public affairs in the field of local and regional government and has successfully worked for a stronger recognition of cities’ challenges within the European agenda.

    Her aim is to act in a way that best serves European cities as key players in the European project and centres for generating renewal and growth. Anna Lisa has a Masters degree from the University of Bologna in political science, and from the University of Leuven in European studies.

  • Andrea Kendall-Taylor

    Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism and threats to democracy, and the state of the Transatlantic alliance.

    Prior to joining CNAS, Andrea served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role Andrea led the U.S. intelligence community’s strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Andrea was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies, and democratic decline.

    Andrea is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals, including the Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy.

    Andrea received her B.A. in politics from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where she conducted dissertation research on oil and autocracy.

  • Amandine Roggeman

    Amandine Roggeman

    Chosen at random in summer 2019 with 149 other French citizens to take part in the French Citizen’s Convention for Climate, Amandine is a 28-year-old Parisien, working in the cultural field and philanthropy.
    The Citizens’ Convention for Climate was an innovative organisation of participatory democracy mandated by the French Government to propose laws and measures to reduce the country’s GHG emissions.
    Currently Administrator of the organization Les 150, Amandine is in charge of the “Europe/International” task force and keeps on advocating for the promotion of citizens’ assemblies and climate change in France and abroad.”

  • Alina Polyakova

    Alina Polyakova

    Dr. Alina Polyakova is President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis.

    Dr. Polyakova is a recognized expert on transatlantic relations with over a decade of leadership experience and deep expertise on European politics, Russian foreign policy, and digital technologies. Before joining CEPA, she was the Founding Director for Global Democracy and Emerging Technology at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she served as Director of Research for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council, where she developed and led the institute’s work on disinformation and Russia.

    Dr. Polyakova writes extensively on Russian political warfare, European security, digital authoritarianism, and the implications of emerging technologies to democracies. She is the author of the book, The Dark Side of European Integration, and of a large number of major reports on disinformation and democracy in Europe. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic, and commentator in major media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, and BBC.

    She has held numerous prestigious fellowships, including at the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright Foundation, among others. She also serves on the board of the Free Russia Foundation and the Institute of Modern Russia and is adjunct professor of European studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

    Dr. Polyakova holds a Ph.D. and MA in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Emory University. She is fluent in Russian and German