Meet Our Team

Aiganysh Aidarbekova

Aiganysh is a Bellingcat researcher from Kyrgyzstan. She is particularly interested in corruption in Central Asia, conspiracies in Europe and tool development.

Anna Hristova

Anna is a Training & Administration Coordinator at Bellingcat.

Beau Donelly

Beau is an editor at Bellingcat, working with the Financial Investigations Team. He previously worked at The Sunday Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and Storyful.

Benjamin Fischer

Benjamin is the Director of Development, Europe, overseeing initiative design, revenue strategy, and effective program delivery on the continent. He is an experienced strategic leader with a background in philanthropy, digital transformation, and organizational development across European civil society.

Carlos Gonzales

Carlos combines an engineering background with visual analysis to expose wrongdoing. He has collaborated with international journalism organizations with investigative outputs in Latin America and Africa. Carlos specializes in topics such as human rights violations, war crimes and child sexual exploitation.

Charlotte Maher

Charlotte is the Social Media Editor at Bellingcat. She is an investigative journalist and previously worked at the BBC, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Seen, among others.

Connor Plunkett

Connor Plunkett is an investigator and trainer at Bellingcat. He is interested in examining the activity of powerful entities using online tools & resources.

Dessi Damianova

Dessi is Bellingcat’s Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for organisational development, fundraising and finance. She brings more than 25 years of experience as a journalist, editor and C-suite executive in the non-profit media development sector. She previously set up large investigative journalism programs in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Eliot Higgins

Eliot is the Founder and Creative Director of Bellingcat, and Director of Bellingcat Production BV. He is the author of the book We Are Bellingcat, which details the story of Bellingcat and online open source investigation.

Eoghan Macguire

Eoghan is Lead Editor at Bellingcat. He previously worked at CNN, NBC News and Storyful.

Foeke Postma

Foeke is an investigator and trainer at Bellingcat. He has a background in conflict analysis and resolution and is particularly interested in military, environmental and human rights issues.

Galen Reich

Galen is an Investigative Technologist at Bellingcat. He uses his expertise in technical R&D to develop new tools, approaches, and visualisations for investigations.

Giancarlo Fiorella

Giancarlo is a Senior Investigator and Education Lead at Bellingcat. He has a PhD in Criminology & Sociolegal Studies from the University of Toronto, where his research focused on anti-government protests in Venezuela.

Hisham Almiraat

Hisham applies his cybersecurity expertise to shield Bellingcat from digital threats. As CISO, he specializes in secure workflows and operational safety, ensuring the team’s investigations remain protected and resilient.

Jake Godin

Jake Godin is a researcher and trainer at Bellingcat. His work has covered conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Palestine, human rights abuses, war crimes and cultural heritage destruction. Previously he worked as a journalist at Scripps News and partnered with Bellingcat on joint video investigations.

Jennifer Coogan

Jennifer is the Executive Director of Bellingcat US, responsible for overseeing US-based philanthropic support, media partnerships and educational programming. She is an experienced C-suite executive who has worked in both startups and traditional media.

Johanna Wild

Johanna Wild is an open source researcher at the intersection of investigative research, tool development and journalism innovation. She was a 2024 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow and is currently an Affiliate at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Kolina Koltai

Kolina Koltai is a researcher and trainer at Bellingcat. She’s primarily focused on the misuse of AI but has many interests. Her background is in misinformation and the anti-vaccine movement. She has a PhD in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Logan Williams

Logan Williams is Bellingcat’s technology officer and a senior data scientist and researcher on Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team. He works across Bellingcat to enable new research methods, develop tools for open source investigations, analyse data, and communicate information through visualisation and cartography.

Lucy Swinnen

Lucy is an editor at Bellingcat with a background in investigative journalism. She previously worked at BBC World Service and First Draft News.

Manon Buret

Manon is a community operations and project manager. She works at the intersection between the Bellingcat Volunteer Community and the Toolkit Project. Manon’s background lies in peacebuilding and advocating for the meaningful inclusion of marginalised communities in peace efforts.

Mareike Vitt

Mareike is the lead fundraiser at Bellingcat. She has a background in international marketing, humanitarian aid and systemic organisational development.

Melissa Zhu

Melissa Zhu is the editor of Bellingcat’s Digital Hate and Harms Team. She has a Master’s in Computational and Data Journalism from Cardiff University.

Merel Zoet

Merel Zoet is the Audience Engagement Producer at Bellingcat, focusing on innovative storytelling for visual investigations. She’s particularly interested in environmental and conflict investigations.

Michael Colborne

Michael is a journalist, investigator and trainer for Bellingcat. He leads Bellingcat’s work researching and monitoring the transnational far right.

Miguel Ramalho

Miguel is a data scientist at Bellingcat. His interests include online disinformation and polarisation, leveraging open source data to build tools and do visual analysis as well as free open source software.

Peter Barth

Peter is an investigator and trainer at Bellingcat. He is interested in organized crime, the illicit wildlife trade, and historical crimes.

Pooja Chaudhuri

Pooja is researcher and trainer at Bellingcat, interested in disinformation and far-right online networks. She previously worked at Alt News.

Ross Higgins

Ross is a researcher and trainer at Bellingcat. He has a particular interest in systems that enable financial crime, as well as online disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Sarah Bishop Woods

Sarah is the Director of Development & Partnerships, U.S., where she builds revenue resilience and forges high-impact partnerships. With 15+ years in business development, strategy, and editorial, she drives outcomes rooted in public good and long-term sustainability.

Sebastian Vandermeersch

Sebastian is a researcher at Bellingcat, specialising in terrorism and civilian harm in conflict. He has investigated violence and human rights abuses in the Middle East and West Africa. He previously worked at BBC Verify, the Centre for Information Resilience, and the International Criminal Court.

Viktorija Ignatavičiūtė

Viktorija is a community builder and strategist with experience across non-profits and enterprises. She fosters meaningful connections, drives cross-functional impact, and cultivates a strong sense of belonging in the communities she supports.

Youri van der Weide

Youri is an open source researcher and trainer for Bellingcat. He has worked on a wide variety of topics, including human rights abuses in Africa, migration in the Eastern Mediterranean, arms exports by EU countries and research into new open source tools and methods.