Mariam Gamdlishvili is Associate Director at the Strategic Security Initiative (SSI) and Head of its Center for Strategic Communications, an independent policy platform focused on international security and strategic affairs. She is a former Georgian civil servant and diplomat specializing in foreign policy, strategic communications, disinformation, and public diplomacy.

 

She previously served at the Administration of the Government of Georgia, where she worked on foreign policy planning and coordination, contributing to Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Her professional experience also includes roles at the UN Women, USAID, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), the Georgian Center for Strategy and Development (GCSD), and the Office of the State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration.

Alongside her policy work, she is an Invited Lecturer at Caucasus University, European University, and Georgian-American University, teaching foreign policy, strategic communications, and public policy.

 

As a researcher and practitioner, she focuses on strategic communications, countering disinformation, and the role of soft and sharp power in shaping geopolitical dynamics, with a regional focus on Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Russia.

 

She is a former Edmund S. Muskie Fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication and a UK FCDO (King’s College London), Fulbright (University of Southern Indiana), and Erasmus+ scholar. She is currently a PhD candidate in International Relations at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.