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Professor Itamara Lochard, Ph.D. is a certified mediator and Director of Cyber Policy Studies in the CEC Dean’s Office at George Mason University (GMU). In 2012, she created the first civilian, interdisciplinary academic program addressing the interface of technology with peace, conflict and communications as the Founding Director of a Cyber Policy Initiative in the Office of the President at Middlebury Institute for International Studies. She exported this vision to U.S. National Defense University’s Institute for National Security Studies (U.S. Department of Defense) as a Senior Fellow. She then accepted a joint appointment at GMU in 2016 to develop it further first at C4I, then CARE and since January 2022 in the CEC Dean’s Office.

Creating novel efforts is a passion for Itamara. In 2008, she developed the first Terrorists’ Use of Cyber Course for NATO, which continues to this day. It was launched at the Center of Excellence – Defense against Terrorism (COE-DAT) where it became a staple; it is now also taught at the NATO School in Oberammergau. Additionally, as advisor to U.S. combatant commander/NATO SACEUR Admiral Stavridis, she co- created the first U.S. European Command (EUCOM)-funded computer network operation, military to military familiarization exercises along with partner U.S. national guard components. These were executed in Estonia and the Republic of Georgia, then later served as a model for other partner countries in Europe. Based on this experience and the lessons from the Estonian Kaitseliit, she developed and commanded the first U.S. “civilian” cyber unit in U.S. defense forces at the rank of COL (MDDF). This effort has since spread to 16 other states to date.

Academically, Itamara has examined sub-state groups’ parastate functions since 1988, tracking them with aggregated governance and influence metrics. In 2004, she copyrighted a model of their organizational structures, tactics, techniques, procedures, areas of cooperation as well as use of information, communication and technology (ICT) and Strategic Communications. These topics have served as the basis for her work with respective NATO Centers of Excellence (CoE) in Turkey (Defense Against Terrorism), Latvia (StratCom), Romania (HCOE) and Estonia (Cooperative Cyber Defense) as well as with NATO Rapid Deployable Corps – Italy (NRDC-ITA) and NATO Rapid Deployable Corps Turkey (NRDC-T).

Dr. Leo Mōtus is a Distinguished Professor and academician at the Estonian Academy of Sciences who has chaired the Engineering Department at Tallinn Technical University (TalTech) in Estonia for nearly a decade. He is the head of a Lab for Proactive Technologies at TalTech and Vice-Chair of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) Cognitive Situation Management (CogSIMA), in their Systems, Man and Cybernetics division. He has also served as National Coordinator of the European Defense Agency, Secretary General of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, President of the Association of Estonian Engineers, and Research Council Member of the Estonian Ministry of Defense.

Prior to these appointments, Leo served as the National Coordinator of CapTech INFORMATION at the European Defence Agency and was a Technical Board Member of the International Federation of Automatic Control. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Journal on Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and the voting member for Estonia for the SCI panel of NATO RTO/STO.

Leo also has extensive experience as a recipient of large and interdisciplinary contracts and grants to include those with NATO, the European Defense Agency, U.S. National laboratories such as LincolnLaboratories,among others. He has alsomanaged multipleindustrial contracts in Estonia and Europe at the Institute of Cybernetics for nearly 20 years. For the Minerva grant, he helped negotiate with IEEE’s CogSIMA for us to host “focus sessions” during their annual conference related to our research, yielding publications, and further eliciting and developing knowledge.

Leo is an Estonian national fluent in Estonian, Russian, and English. He is an electrical engineer with a Master of Science (M.S.) in Automation from Tallinn Technical University and a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Computer Control from the Institute of Cybernetics in Estonia. Additionally, he holds a Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.) in Automatic Control obtained during the Cold War from the Moscow Institute of Sciences in the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Jaan Priisalu was the founding Director General of the Estonian Information Systems Authority (RIA) which is an umbrella government agency in charge of the entire e-services of the country, to include the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). He also served on the Management Board of the European Union Agency for Cyber Security (ENISA). He founded, and was the second in command, of the Küber Kaitseliit (Cyber Defense Unit) of the Estonian Defense League in 2008; he remains a Committee of Elders member to this day.

While at Cybernetica, Jaan was one of the developers and implementers of Estonian national ID card and digital signature infrastructure which is the hallmark of Estonia’s unique e-society and paperless government. Additionally, he served as the head of IT Risk Management at Swedbank, the largest bank in the Nordics as well as the Director of Payment Cards and Information Security at Union Bank in Estonia.

From a research perspective, Jaan has been an Affiliate Professor of Cyber Policy Studies since 2021 serving on various contracts and grants to include one with NATO. Prior to that, he led the white team of the largest NATO cyber exercise (Locked Shields), in his role as Senior Research Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Center of Excellence (NATO CCD-COE) over several years. Jaan was also the Chair of Network Software in the Department of Computer Science at the School of Information Technologies at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech). There, he also held a research position at the Centre for Digital Forensics and Cyber, in the Department of Software and lectured on “Mass Attacks and Defense”. He has also lectured on “Information Security” at the Estonian Business School, in Tallinn.

Dr. Epp Laugaste-Poobus is an Estonian national with 20 years of experience as a clinical psychologist in Estonia, addressing all segments of society to include minors and prisoners. In this capacity, she has held senior roles supervising psychiatric personnel. She has expertise in conducting assessments of many subpopulations as well as various crises, to include rehabilitation efforts and special needs. She has worked as a psychologist in the private sector and the Estonian Ministry of Justice.

Epp has also been a lead trainer, coach, and supervisor in the Estonian Ministry of Social Services. In the last several years she has lead team trainings on understanding and valuing multicultural inputs. Examples include: How to Build and Maintain Good Relations in a Team with Members of Different Ethnic Groups, Appreciative Look – Valuing Differences, and Work with others by Practicing Active Listening. Several of the grants and contracts she has supported in the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research focus on improving innovation and motivation for social service workers and educators.

Ms. Mirjam Kert is an Estonian national, and a member of the Strategic Communications Unit of the Küber Kaitseliit (Cyber Defense Unit) of the Estonian Defense Forces, participating in national exercises regularly.

She has earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian studies with a focus on China and language studies from Tallinn University and a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) in business innovation from the Estonian Business School. In addition, she was awarded a Diploma in Psychology from the University of Tartu in Estonia. She is fluent in Estonian, Chinese, and English with academic experience in China. At the International Centre for Defence Studies in Tallinn, she monitored and complied reports relating to China’s economic expansion.

Furthermore, Mirjam has nearly 10 years of project management experience with technical companies in Estonia. This has included managing several multi-million Euro Horizon 2020 grants by the European Union as well as websites. Companies where she has been a project manager include Guardtime which developed KSI, “originally designed to support the Estonian Government in its quest for zero-trust systems,” i.e., systems that can provide formally verifiable mathematical proof of the correctness of operation. She also held this position at the Estonian Development Fund as well as Startup Estonia Kredex, which is a governmental initiative aimed to supercharge the Estonian startup ecosystem supporting the goal fostering additional startup success stories.

Ms. Debra Schenaker has supported Cyber Policy Studies for eight years as an office manager. She is an administrative assistant with more than 10 years of experience at Mason’s Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications Computing, Cyber and Intelligence (C5I). She has also been a Purchasing Administrator in the Civil Environmental & Infrastructure Engineering Department for over five years. She has supported Professor Itamara Lochard as Director of Cyber Policy Studies at Mason on two NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) grants, a U.S. Office of Naval Research grant, a NATO Information Environment Assessment contract at CARE, as well as the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense Minerva Initiative in the CEC Dean’s Office. In these capacities, she was responsible for onboarding personnel, purchasing all office equipment, addressing computer software issues, managing payroll, addressing international fellows and tracking registrations and overseas conference attendance. Ms Schenaker is also a U.S. Air Force Veteran, having served as an aircraft maintenance officer (F-15 Eagle, B-52 Stratofortress and KC-10 Tankers)