Introducing Power for Democracies 

Fırat is a Senior Research Fellow and holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Warwick, where his thesis focused on effective altruism. He was a Global Priorities Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute, as well as at the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. He served as a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Koç University. 

Fırat founded Effective Altruism Turkey and served as its Director. 

His postdoctoral research projects on the long-term future, including one on effective institution designs and another on the moral and political status of artificially sentient beings, won grant competitions. He is the Founder of Poedat, an academic community.

Eamon is an assistant professor at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs and a Senior Fellow at Power for Democracies. He is interested in, publishes on and teaches courses on a range of topics in international relations, political philosophy and effective altruism. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a B.A. in Economics from Lehigh University.  

Claudia is a Senior Research Fellow. She has a Ph.D. in Citizenship and Human Rights from the University of Barcelona, where she studied the securitisation of protest in the Iberian Peninsula and is a current Post-doctoral fellow with the Open Society University Forum for Democracy and Development, looking at pro and anti-democracy popular mobilisation. Her research has been focused on social movements, protest and protest policing, media representations of protest and securitisation theory.  She is also a researcher with the V-Dem Regional Centre for Southern Europe and a 2024/25 Fellow at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies.  

Markus is a civil society activist and campaign and communications strategist with many years of NGO experience. Most recently Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany, he has held various leadership roles at Amnesty in Germany and on the global level over the last twenty years. 
Among other things, as Chair of the Global Steering Group, he drove forward Amnesty's international work on Human Rights in the Digital Age. 

Markus advises various institutions, is on the Advisory Board of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and a Board member of ‘Forensis e.V. - Investigative Commons’ [in the network with Forensic Architecture at London's Goldsmith College].
Markus holds a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Cologne.

Orlando is a Research Fellow and holds a M.Sc. in Research Methods in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of St. Andrews and a B.Sc. in Anthropology from University College London.  

They have worked in various research capacities for the University of Lethbridge, the Future Matters Project, and Longview Philanthropy.  

Giada is Operations Manager at Power for Democracies. She studied political science and international relations at the University of Florence followed by several years of training as a systemic coach, sustainability manager and international project manager with focus on development cooperation, humanitarian aid and climate change. Before joining Power for Democracies, she worked on projects and processes at non-profit organisations and societies in the areas of women's rights and interreligious dialogue, social and gender justice, citizen participation and climate policy. 

Karoline is a Senior Researcher with a special expertise in democratic theory and the measurement of democracy, as well as the impact of digital technologies on democracy. She has submitted her Ph.D. thesis in Political Theory and Sociology and holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in sociology and mathematics.  

In her academic career, she worked as a a lecturer and researcher at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. Later, she was a doctoral researcher and is still a fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (Berlin Social Science Center) and the Weizenbaum Institute, where she is still associated as a guest researcher.

Aurora is a Researcher at Power for Democracies. She holds an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Witten/Herdecke and a B.Sc. in Economics and Management from the University of Salerno. Prior to joining Power for Democracies, Aurora gained research experience at the university level, focusing on International Political Economy, Development Economics and the EU-funded 'Democracy Anger and Elite Responses' project. Additionally, she interned with the OECD Directorate of Education and Skills and has worked in various capacities for both private and non-profit organizations. 

Stephan is a strategy consultant, entrepreneur, and investor with nearly forty years of experience in the commercial and non-profit worlds. In recent years, he has focused on advising high net worth individuals and families on how to give most effectively to address humanity's most pressing problems. He strongly believes that global democratic backsliding is the 'mother of all risks' to human flourishing.

Stephan currently works as a senior philanthropic advisor at effektiv-spenden.org, the leading non-profit donation and advice platform for effective giving in the D-A-CH region. He is also a co-founder of the social impact holding company gut.org and the associated non-profit organisations betterplace.org and betterplace-lab.org, as well as a board member of the non-profit organisation Future Cleantech Architects. Stephan holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cologne and a Master of International Management from CEMS.

Adriano is a philosopher, social entrepreneur, and policy consultant. He's currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public (UC Berkeley) and a Visiting Scholar at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (LMU Munich).

Adriano’s research is in normative and applied ethics, decision and social choice theory, and political theory. His applied interests include big data and AI, public health, climate change, animal welfare, liberal democracy and authoritarian threats, international security, and European federalism.