Our team
Democracy R&D’s governance bodies include a 10-member Governance Council, selected randomly from the network members, an Advisory Board, three Co-leads, and two junior staff members.
Governance council
Sanskriti Menon
Dr Sanskriti Menon is a Senior Programme Director at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), India. Sanskriti has over 3...
Louise Humblet
Louise is a passionate practionner in the field of deliberative democracy for over five years now. She is the Director...
Nivek Thompson
Nivek Thompson MALP, LLB, BA is the founder and executive director of Deliberately Engaging. She is highly experienced in designing,...
David Dunetz
David has worked for the past 25 years in the field of education, sustainability and the environment in Israel. Founding...
Tim Hughes
Tim is a specialist in public participation and democratic reform, with over 15 years of experience designing participatory and deliberative...
Irena Fiket
Irena Fiket is a Senior Research Fellow and academic coordinator of the Laboratory for Active Citizenship and Democratic Innovations at...
Tatsuro Sakano
In 1987, received Doctor of Engineering from the Department of Systems Science at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1991-92, Fulbright...
Nicole Armos
Nicole Armos is the Manager of Knowledge and Practice at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, where she works...
Advisory board
Nicole Curato
Nicole Curato is a Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her...
Jane Mansbridge
Jane Mansbridge, Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, is the author of Beyond Adversary Democracy, an...
Lyn Carson
Lyn Carson (“Carson” to those who know her) is Research Director at The newDemocracy Foundation in Australia, where her work...
David Van Reybrouck
As a chairholder David will hold the distinguished Arne Næss lecture at Oslo University’s Festive Hall end of August and...
Graham Smith
I am Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in the Department of...
Sanskriti Menon
Dr Sanskriti Menon is a Senior Programme Director at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), India. Sanskriti has over 3...
Silvia Cervellini
Silvia Cervellini is Co-founder and Director of Delibera Brasil since 2017. After an executive career at IBOPE for more than...
Tatsuro Sakano
In 1987, received Doctor of Engineering from the Department of Systems Science at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1991-92, Fulbright...
Marjan Ehsassi
Marjan H. Ehsassi is the Executive Director of FIDE NA (the Federation for Innovation in Democracy North America). She is...
Alice Siu
Alice Siu is Associate Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab and Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development,...
Mauricio Mejía
Mauricio Mejia leads the work on citizen participation and digital democracy in the Open Government Unit at the OECD. His...
Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul
Senior Expert and Deputy Head of Unit at the European Commission in charge of citizens’ engagement, former Member of the...
Savaş Zafer Şahin
He was born in Ankara. After his bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning at METU, he worked as an...
Doreen Grove
Doreen leads Scottish Government’s involvement in the Open Government Partnership at both a National and International level. In Scotland, Open...
Ieva Cesnulaityte
Ieva Cesnulaityte explores the intersection of deliberative democracy, democratic resilience, and collective trauma. Currently she advises on the design and...
Co-leads
David Schecter
David Schecter has been working in the field of deliberative democracy since 2012. He and Lyn Carson led the founding...
Indira Latorre
Indira is a career professor at the Faculty of Law of Universidad del Rosario (Colombia). She holds a PhD in...
Felipe Rey
Professor of Public Law at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia. He holds a Ph.D. in Law (2019) and an LL.M....
Staff
Santiago Niño Aguilar
He studied Law at the Javeriana University and is currently pursuing studies in Philosophy at the National University of Colombia....
Canning Malkin
Canning is a deliberative democracy researcher whose primary focuses are climate citizens’ assemblies, deliberations on AI policy and governance, and...
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Get to know our work
Highlighted Projects
The network’s members work to increase civic lottery use, deliberation, and democratic reforms, locally to internationally. DRD’s areas of work are collaborative learning, community building, field building, and democracy change.
Get to know our Living Guidebooks
New Frontiers Project
We created three comprehensive and situationally-relevant living guidebooks on institutionalization, the Global South, and difficult issues