Alex Scrivener – Executive Director
Alex Scrivener is the executive director at DSI and a founding member of the organisation. Based in Tbilisi, Alex is responsible for the management and organisational strategy of the organisation. A previous fellowship recipient of the Eurasia Democratic Security Network (EDSN), Alex is a long-time analyst of the region, with a special focus on the Caucasus.
Alex has worked for a variety of international, civil society and media organisations in Europe and the region including the BBC, the International Criminal Court, Global Justice Now and the Transnational Institute. His articles have been published in a variety of media including the Guardian, the Independent and Open Democracy.
Diana Lezhava – Administrative Officer
Diana Lezhava is administrative officer at DSI and a founding member. She has up to 13 years of experience in the civil society sector. She has also worked at DSI’s parent organisation, the Center for Social Sciences (CSS), since 2010, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC) as the Resident Director of its Georgia branch since 2014.
She also works as a research fellow for CSS, focussing on higher education and the labour market and is an author/co-author of a number of publications on the subject, which is also the focus of her doctoral dissertation. Since 2018, Diana has also served as an expert on higher education for the EU’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).
Maryna Vorotnyuk – Senior Associate
Maryna Vorotnyuk is a senior fellow at DSI working on the Eurasia Democratic Security Network (EDSN) project and teaches DSI’s certificate course in democratic security. Her analytical work focuses on security developments in the Black Sea region, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish foreign policies, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Alongside her work for DSI, Dr Maryna Vorotnyuk is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London. She has also worked at Central European University in Budapest, Comenius University in Bratislava and was affiliated with the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Ukraine and Mechnikov Odesa National University. Maryna is the recipient of a number of fellowships and prizes including the Black Sea Young Reformers Fellowship (2012), EU Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship (2016) and German Marshall Fund Policy Designers Network fellowship (2019).
Hayley Jewett – Communications Officer (2022)
Hayley Jewett is a communications officer at DSI and a founding member. She was also an EDSN Associate Fellow in 2020-21. Most recently, she led an environmental campaign against indoor air pollution in public kindergartens at the Georgian branch office of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF).
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College and studied abroad in Armenia and Russia conducting research on local environmental issues. She went on to work as a cultural ambassador in Astana, Kazakhstan during the 2017 World Exposition on Future Energy before moving to Tbilisi in 2018, where she continues to reside.