Marie Bohner started working with First Draft on CrossCheck France in 2017 for the French presidential election, coordinating the collaboration of media, academic and tech partners on the project. She has been working with First Draft’s European partners since March 2019. Marie has managed artistic and cultural events and Human Rights and advocacy related projects in France, Germany, Switzerland, India, Hungary and Senegal. These range from festivals and conferences to training courses and leadership seminars with said events having been conducted on an intercultural, local and international basis. As a freelancer she has written for publications including Global Voices (ENG and FR), Rue89 Strasbourg (FR), Novo (FR), Zut (FR) and Fisheye (FR). 

Derek Bowler is Head of Social Newsgathering at the European Broadcasting Union and founder of the Eurovision Social Newswire. Previously a senior journalist & news projects lead at Storyful, he specialises in conflict zone verification and has worked on projects with The New York Times, Washington Post and Google News Labs. He is a graduate of Journalism and New Media from the University of Limerick.

Born (1986) and raised in Milan, lawyer by formation but journalist and fact-checker by passion and profession. Specialized in International and European Law in 2010 at the University of Milan with a thesis regarding the Treaty of Lisbon, I decided to follow my youth’s dream and, after a two year Master in Journalism, I became a professional journalist. Since then I have written especially about foreign policy, Middle East and European Union. In 2016 I came aboard Pagella Politica and became a fact-checker, working mainly for the news agency Agi (Agenzia Giornalistica Italiana) but also for other media.

Stefan Schustereder has served the Council of Europe as expert, materials author, online course developer and online trainer since 2017. He has worked as an educator in both secondary and tertiary education for more than 10 years and currently serves as a teacher of History and English, as a teacher trainer in History and English and as a post-doc researcher at the University of Tübingen. He received his M.A. and his Teacher`s Certificate (including A-levels) from the University of Freiburg and pursued his doctoral studies in Freiburg and Oxford before receiving his PhD in 2012. Stefan Schustereder has taught in schools and universities in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Canada and the USA and is a trainer for Learn2Change.

Dr. Sander van der Linden is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. He was recently named a "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science (APS), described by Fast Company as one of 4 heroes of digital democracy and featured by WIRED magazine as one of “15 top thinkers". He convenes the Cambridge Special Interest Group on Disinformation and Media Literacy and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Psychology. His edited book “Risk and Uncertainty in a Post-Truth Society” was published in 2019.

Born in Athens in 1990, Vasileios Giannias currently works as Co-Secretary to the Secretariat of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He joined the Council of Europe in February 2019, starting from the Directorate General of Democracy where he worked as a Project Officer for the World Forum for Democracy. He holds a B.A in International and European Studies from the University of Piraeus, and an M.A in International Law and Diplomacy from Panteion University, Greece. He is also member of the Hellenic Society of International law and International Relations. His current work focuses on the democratic governance of artificial intelligence, as well as the rise of illiberal democracies across Europe.