The Negotiation Task Force unites a diverse team of scholars, students, and professionals from Harvard University and beyond to produce innovative negotiation research, analyses, and exercises.
NTF research assistants advance our research agenda through conflict analysis work. NTF case writers create scenario briefing content for our negotiation exercises. NTF associates contribute crucial expertise to Task Force projects. NTF wargame specialists manage communication flows and computer systems during the Red Horizon exercise.
Negotiation Task Force Team
Arvid Bell
Director, Negotiation Task Force & Lecturer on Government
Arvid is the Director of the Davis Center Negotiation Task Force, Senior Designer with the NTF’s Red Horizon Project, and Lecturer on Government at Harvard University. He specializes in negotiation analysis, complex conflicts, and international security. Arvid holds a dual degree from Free University of Berlin and Science Po Paris, a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Goethe University Frankfurt.
Warisha Aslam
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Warisha is a Research Assistant for the Negotiation Task Force. In 2021, she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Purdue University. At Purdue, Warisha held multiple research fellowship positions and worked as a Congressional Intern for Senator Dick Durbin. Warisha was also a 2021-2022 Fulbright Research Scholar in Istanbul, Turkey. While in Turkey, she collaborated with Koç University’s Migration Research Center to conduct a mixed-methods research analysis of how misinformation and tolerance impact Syrian refugees’ social integration with the Turkish host community.
Fara Abbas
Fellow, Negotiation Task Force
Fara Abbas is a Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She is the former Director of Programs of the Office of the National Security Council (ONSC) of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Previously, she served as the Deputy Director for International Relations and Regional Cooperation with the same organization. Prior to her work at ONSC, she established the Joint Economic Commission Secretariat at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance and oversaw the government’s bilateral economic cooperation with neighboring and regional countries. She has extensive experience in Afghanistan as well as south and central Asia. She received her master’s degree from Stanford University and bachelor’s from George Washington University.
Marat Atnashev
Center Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Marat is a Center Associate who works closely with the Negotiation Task Force on complex international and business negotiations. Marat has worked intensively in both academic and corporate fields. He was the dean at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo from 2016 to 2019 and has run international capital construction projects in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Venezuela. Marat holds a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Grace Kane
Intern, Negotiation Task Force
Grace Kane is an intern at the NTF with interests in security and resilience studies. Grace assists the NTF with operations such as ACONA and Bridging Insights. She is a second-year student enrolled at Northeastern, pursuing a degree in International Affairs and Criminal Justice with a minor in French. Grace’s additional research interests include the effects of misinformation on arms control and conflict negotiation.
Isabella Testa
Intern, Negotiation Task Force
Isabella Testa is one of the Negotiation Task Force interns and is the primary communicator of ACONA operations. She is an undergraduate at Northeastern University, studying Political Science and International Affairs with minors in Economics and Spanish. She plans on attending law school after she graduates. Isabella spent the summer of 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland, at the United Nations researching transnational issues in weapons disarmament, past-and-present nuclear policy, and the shift toward sustainable energy. Isabella’s academic interests include geopolitical issues within Russian-American relations, diplomacy, and international law.
Conor Cunningham
Innovation Fellow, Negotiation Task Force
Conor Cunningham graduated from the University of Washington in 2020 with a degree in International Studies, where he was an International Policy Institute Cybersecurity Fellow. His research focused primarily on election interference. Conor studied Russian in Moscow in 2018 as a FLAS Fellow and in Latvia as a Boren Scholar during the 2019-2020 academic year. Most recently, as a US Fulbrighter, he conducted research on social and traditional media usage among university-age students in Moldova. In February 2022, he was relocated to Bucharest, Romania, where he worked as a translator with Ukrainian refugees. Cunningham’s research interests include information operations and power dynamics in the larger Black Sea region.
Nora Cyra
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Nora Cyra graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 2021 with a double major in International Relations and Russian & Eurasian Studies. While at Mount Holyoke, she worked as a research assistant, interned for the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy, and studied in Moscow in 2019. Nora's undergraduate thesis examined the opportunities for confidence-building measures in the unresolved conflicts of the former Soviet Union, and her ongoing research interests include conflict resolution opportunities and experiences in this region.
Olga Kiyan
Teaching Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Olga Kiyan graduated from Harvard College in 2022 with a degree in Economics and a minor in Government. While at Harvard, she worked as a research assistant and interned for the U.S. government. Her undergraduate thesis examined the Russian informal labor market and its determinants. Olga's current research interests include the politics of memory and history in the post-Soviet space, Russian international relations, and post-Soviet security policy. She hopes to focus her career on international relations with the post-Soviet space.
Sean Eriksen
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Sean is a recent graduate of the Davis Center with an MA in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies. He is a Research Assistant with the Negotiation Task Force and a Research Assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasia Program. Sean supports several NTF projects, including Red Horizon and the NTF Insider. Previously, Sean received his BA in law and international relations at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. His research interests include post-Soviet Russian ideology, especially state approaches to the development of Russian civic and national identity under Putin.
Andrew Gordan
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Andrew is an undergraduate at Harvard College concentrating in Government. His academic interests include U.S. diplomacy, the climate, and South and Central Asian politics. Outside the NTF, Andrew has interned with Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, serves as a policy chair for the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative, and loves cooking and soccer.
Kateryna Olkhovyk
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Kateryna Olkhovyk received a bachelor's degree in Asian studies from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, and graduated from the School of Law and Economy of China at the University of Warsaw. In 2019, she received a Yenching Academy Scholarship to pursue a master's degree in Chinese law and society at Peking University. After graduation, Kateryna interned at the Parliament of Ukraine and worked in the National Power Company "Ukrenergo," where she was part of the International Cooperation Unit that fostered Ukraine's integration into the ENTSO-E. At Harvard, Kateryna intends to study the influence of the Russo-Ukrainian War on global food and energy crises, implications of the Chornobyl disaster, perceptions of Eastern Europe through the Euro-Orientalism concept as well as energy security in the Eurasian region.
Daniel Palmer
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Daniel is a Research Assistant for the Negotiation Task Force and a first year graduate student at the REECA program. Prior to joining the NTF, Daniel graduated with the Harvard College Class of 2019 and lived in St. Petersburg, Russia for one year as part of an undergraduate study abroad program. Professionally, Daniel worked as a paramedic in Cambridge for 5 years.
Mercedes Sapuppo
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Mercedes is an undergraduate at Harvard College concentrating in Social Studies with a focus on democracy and security in central and eastern Europe. Her main academic interests include press freedom, U.S. Foreign Policy in Eastern Europe, and the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Outside the NTF, Mercedes is a Research Assistant with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard, and she is a dancer and the Historian of the Harvard Ballet Company.
Lucas Risinger
Research Assistant, Negotiation Task Force
Lucas Risinger graduated with highest distinction and honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021, where he studied economics, Russian, and mathematics. Lucas’ work and research have centered around poverty and economic development, including an undergraduate honors thesis investigating the economic externalities of welfare receipt, and a summer working at an international impact investment fund in Tbilisi, Georgia. Lucas studied in Moscow in 2019 and during the 2021-2022 academic year at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan continued his Russian studies with a Boren Award.
Negotiation Task Force Associates
Alexander Bollfrass
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Alex is a Davis Center and NTF Associate, for which he is the co-creator of the Red Horizon Project, and a Senior Researcher on nuclear policy at the Center for Security Studies in Switzerland. He was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, specializing in nuclear weapons policy and proliferation. Alex was a nuclear weapons policy researcher at the Washington-based Stimson Center and Arms Control Association before earning a Ph.D. in security studies from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Mariana Budjeryn
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Mariana Budjeryn is a Research Associate with the Project of Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Formerly, she held appointments as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MTA, a fellow at Harvard Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and as a visiting professor at Tufts University and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. Mariana’s research straddles nuclear history and international politics with the focus on nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, Cold War, Soviet collapse and post-Soviet transitions. Her forthcoming book Inheriting the Bomb: Soviet Collapse and Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament examines the history and politics of post-Soviet nuclear renunciation. Mariana’s analytical contributions have appeared in The Nonproliferation Review, Harvard International Review, World Affairs Journal, Arms Control Today, The Washington Post, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, War on the Rocks, and in the publications of the Wilson International Center for Scholars where she is a Global Fellow. She holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in International Relations from Central European University (formerly) in Budapest, Hungary, and a BA in Political Science from the KyivMohyla Academy in Ukraine.
Stephen Delaney
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Stephen is currently a consultant in Arlington, VA working in the defense and intelligence sector. Stephen received in his Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2018, where he studied negotiation analysis and international security. Stephen has experience working in defense, diplomacy, and security cooperation in the private and public sector, as well as at the international level.
James Evans
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
James is the Communications Officer at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, and a Ph.D. student in Harvard's history department. His research interests include modern Chinese history and government, China and Taiwan’s foreign policies, and China’s relations with the developing world. James is a graduate of Harvard's Regional Studies East Asia master's program and the University of Oxford. He was previously a public affairs consultant in China and the UK.
Claire Fisher
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Claire is an Operations Research/Systems Analyst in the Strategic Wargaming Division, Center for Army Analysis, G-8, Department of the Army. Claire's current role is supporting and leading strategic and operational wargames and related analyses to support the Army staff, Army Service Component Commands, and Combatant Commands to inform Joint, combined, and interagency senior-level guidance, planning, and decisions. She holds Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from La Salle University and a Master of Arts in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia from Harvard University.
Monica Giannone
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Monica is a trainer, consultant, and mediator specializing in negotiation, coalition management, and multi-stakeholder disputes. Monica runs the Harvard Kennedy School Negotiation Project (KSNP), a project of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Monica’s current areas of work focus on civil disagreement within the United States, overcoming partisan divide in U.S. legislatures, value-based conflict, gender and negotiation, and US-Russia relations. Monica is an Adjunct Lecturer at Babson College, where she teaches negotiation in their MBA program. Monica holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Roland Gillah
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Roland is a conflict analyst at Mercy Corps' Humanitarian Access Team. In his current assignment, he works in the Democratic Republic of Congo countering disinformation related to the Ebola response. In his prior assignment he supported direct negotiations with rival tribes and armed groups in Libya to ensure the safe arrival of humanitarian aid to conflict areas. He is a researcher at the Maghreb Economic Forum in Tunisia, where he studies de-radicalization of returning foreign fighters. Previously, he worked as an Analyst at BMNT partners and Hacking For Defense, a civil-military relations initiative working on emerging technology based in Silicon Valley. Roland is a graduate of Tufts University, where he studied International Relations, French, and Arabic.
Lukas Ihringer
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Lukas studied finance at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal, Canada. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in International Management at HEC Paris, and hopes to stay in Paris afterwards to work in management consulting. As an Associate with the NTF, Lukas has focused on research for "The Eurasia Deal" negotiation project.
Linas Kojala
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Linas is the Director of the Eastern Europe Studies Center, one of the leading think-tanks in the Baltic states, as well as a Lecturer and PhD candidate at Vilnius University. This year, Linas started as a Baltic Sea Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute. In 2017-2018, we was a Fulbright Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. His role with the Negotiation Task Force is focused on the evaluation of global developments from NATO's perspective. Kojala's hobbies include soccer and classical music.
Benny Lin
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Benny Lin is an Associate with the NTF, where he has focused on research for "The Eurasia Deal" negotiation project. Benny has done his undergraduate studies in finance at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. His major areas of interest include economic development, international trade, corporate finance, and startup ecosystems. His experience includes an Investment Analyst term at AIMCo's Infrastructure and Renewables team where he conducted due diligence, financial modeling, and corporate finance research on major international transactions. He has also held strategy and research positions at Kruger Energy and McGill University.
Tom O’Bryan
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Tom O’Bryan is an expert in peacebuilding, conflict mediation, and human rights. Tom works for the British Government as a Conflict Adviser, currently serving in the British Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, and holds a Masters of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He was previously a political adviser with the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has also worked on peace and conflict issues in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. Tom has published articles on fragility and conflict with outlets including Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs and testified before parliamentary committees in the UK and France.
Shivan Sarin
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Shivan is a lawyer and policy advocate who has written extensively on issues of human rights, negotiation, and foreign policy. Shivan is the Deputy Director of Reprieve US, where he works to abolish the death penalty worldwide and end extreme human rights abuses. Shivan has also held positions at Social Finance, Ropes & Gray, TERI, and the RAND Corporation. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School.
Taylor Valley
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Taylor is a PhD student in Political Science at Northeastern University and graduate from Harvard University in 2018, where she received her Master's degree in Russian, Eastern European & Central Asian Studies. Taylor has a strong interest in international affairs and wrote her Master's thesis on the topic of Russia's contemporary relations with Latin American countries.
Will Weinfield
Associate, Negotiation Task Force
Will Weinfield is an associate with the Davis Center Negotiation Task Force. He has conducted research on Chinese coercion for the Stimson Center and the national security industrial base for the National Defense University Eisenhower School. He graduated Tufts University in 2021, majoring in International Relations and Economics, and minoring in Chinese. He has experience working in national security research, wargaming, and econometric analysis.
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