Julie Broome has been Director of Ariadne since 2016. She has over 20 years of experience in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors, with a particular focus on human rights and transitional justice. She served as Director of Programmes at the Sigrid Rausing Trust, where she oversaw grantmaking to human rights organisations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas, and previously managed technical rule of law assistance programmes in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia with the CEELI Institute in Prague and the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. She holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, an MA in International Studies from the University of Washington, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has an interest in bridging research and practice and is currently the chair of the advisory board of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

Georgiana Gheorghe is the executive director of APADOR-CH, a 30-year-old human rights organization based in Bucharest, Romania. She has 13 years of working experience in non-governmental organizations in Central and Eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, and Latvia). Prior to being appointed director in 2018, she was working mainly on APADOR-CH's criminal justice projects. Through the years she has been involved in research, advocacy and strategic litigation in various human rights areas: access to information of public interest; transparency in the decision-making process; police reform; rights of people deprived of liberty; and rights of people with mental disabilities. Georgiana studied political science at Bucharest University and has an M.A. in international human rights law from the Legal Studies Department of Central European University.

Dr. Krassimir Kanev graduated in 1982 from Sofia University. Specialized Human Rights and Religious Freedom at Columbia University in 1996-97. For 10 years he taught an introductory course on international human rights at Sofia State University. Has also taught sociology, sociology of law, critical social theory, environmental studies and international human rights in a number of colleges and universities in Bulgaria and abroad, among them the Plovdiv State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Sarajevo and the Central European University. Since 2003 teaches online courses for a US-based organization Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) for human rights professionals. Has taught courses on UN mechanisms for human rights protection for lawyers from several East European countries. Started human rights work in 1988. Has been and continues to be an activist in a number of human rights and environmental NGOs. Since 1994 – Director of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. In the past, he has also been member of the boards of a number of international human rights NGOs and institutions. At present, he is Vice-President of the European Prison Litigation Network, director emeritus of PILnet, member of the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, member of the Board of the Association for the Prevention of Torture and member of the Board of the International Partnership for human rights. Dr Kanev successfully represents clients before the European Court of Human Rights on a variety of human rights violations.

Sara Lalić is the program director of Centre for Peace Studies (CPS), a civil society organization based in Zagreb, Croatia. She has been active in civil society for 15 years, working on various human rights and social justice issues, such as combating racism, xenophobia, and related discrimination and hate speech; Roma rights; asylum and migration; right to assembly; civic space and protection of public goods. During her professional and activist engagement in CPS, she has been involved in research, campaigning, and advocacy, and was a civil society representative in a number of advisory bodies and working groups for drafting public policies in the field of human rights and civil society at the national level. She is currently an external member of the Croatian Parliament Committee on Human and National Minority Rights. She is active in several civil society networks at the national and European level. Sara has a B.A. in sociology and comparative literature, and an M.A. in sociology.

Andrea is the executive director of CILD (Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights). He previously worked for the Transparency & Accountability Initiative in London and was a researcher for Italy at the Open Government Partnership. Always active in the field of human rights, he began his career as a humanitarian worker before becoming a consultant and researcher for governments as well as non-governmental and international organizations. Co-founder of Diritto Di Sapere (Right To Know), the first Italian organization working on the right of access to information, he graduated in law at the University of Trento.

Adam Piotr Bodnar is a graduate of Warsaw University (magister iuris) and the Central European University in Budepest (LL.M. in Comparative Constitutional Law). In 2006 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Warsaw in the field of constitutional law, and in 2019 he obtained his habilitation title for the book on enforcement of the ECtHR judgments. In 2004-15 he was associated with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, first as a co-founder and coordinator of the Strategic Litigation Program, and then as head of the legal department and vice-president of the board. He served as an expert of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. In 2013-2014 Adam was appointed as a member of the board of directors of the UN Fund for the Victims of Torture. Adam was the Polish Ombudsman for Citizen Rights from 2015 until July 2021. He is now professor of law and the Dean of the Law Faculty at the SWPS University in Warsaw, as well as visiting professor at the University of Cologne. He comments on human rights’ situation in his regular columns in Gazeta Wyborcza and NaTemat.pl.

Máté Szabó works as the Director of Programs at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU, Budapest), where he is responsible for the supervision of holding various strategic litigation cases by the organization before domestic, lower and higher, and international courts as well. Previously he was the director of Eötvös Károly Policy Institute (Budapest, Hungary). He had also been a senior lecturer at the University of Miskolc’s Department of Information and Media Law. Szabó is a lawyer specializing in the protection of fundamental freedoms and informational rights; he obtained his PhD degree at ELTE University (Budapest, Hungary) in 2011.