director, Civitas Schools; commentator on food issues
Justine Brian is Director of the schools’ programme for the think tank Civitas and, as the former director of the sixth form Debating Matters competition, is a current DM Ambassador. Justine believes in education and grappling with big ideas – and practised what she preaches by completing a degree in Classical Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, as a mature student. She loves good food and hates food snobbery, and learned to cook at Westminster College. She is an occasional writer on food issues, and her greatest media claim to fame was being on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on the issue of ‘frugal food’, which made her Mum extremely proud.
clinical psychologist
Carole previously worked for the NHS, specialising in sexual health, trauma, chronic pain, cancer and palliative care. In recent years her work has focused on the politicisation of psychology and the psychotherapy professions. In 2022 she co-authored an independent report with Dr Kirsty Miller, titled The Politicisation of Clinical Psychology Training Courses in the UK. Carole also contributed to the book Cynical Therapies: Perspectives on the Antitherapeutic nature of Critical Social Justice edited by Dr Val Thomas. Carole is a co-director of Critical Therapy Antidote. She is also a member of the Advisory Council for Don’t Divide Us, and co-founder of the UK campaign Save Mental Health. She writes for the Daily Sceptic and is currently collaborating with the Free Speech Union on a survey investigating the effects on mental health of being cancelled.
designer/photographer
As a late ‘Baby Boomer’ Howard has witnessed the huge changes in society over the past 50 years. Academically average, he graduated in 1977 with an undistinguished degree in sociology from a polytechnic. Rather than pursue a career in social work like his peers, he became involved in the entertainment business working in the predominantly subsidised arts sector for 10 years as a marketer before becoming a supplier to it. He grew a two-man business into a design group working in marketing and design for theatre, museums/galleries, dance and music before becoming self-employed in 2005, self-teaching himself with the tools and skills required.
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CEO, The Economist Educational Foundation
Flora Letanka is the CEO of The Economist Educational Foundation. Previously she served on The Executive Team at Teach First. She started her career as a teacher on the Teach First programme in London after graduating from Oxford. She lives in St. Albans with her husband and three children.
project assistant, Academy of Ideas; convener; Battle Book Club
Emma is currently working as a project assistant for the Academy of Ideas, helping to organise the Battle of Ideas festival and convening the Battle Book Club. She is a recent graduate from the University of Birmingham, completing her degree in politics. She has previously written for spiked and the University of Birmingham Redbrick paper. She also co-authored The Corona Generation: coming of age in a crisis with Jennie Bristow in 2020.
stipendiary lecturer in French, Oriel College
Dr Marie Kawthar Daouda teaches French language and literature at Oriel College, Oxford. Marie grew up in Morocco and studied in Paris. Marie’s research focuses on the reception of Roman antiquity in modern times, on the artistic representations of good and evil, and on 19th-21st century political crises in France.
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educator, OSZ Dahme-Spreewald
Alina was raised in NRW where she studied at Universität Duisburg-Essen to become a teacher for English and French.
Several moves throughout her childhood took her to various places in Germany and finally she came to Berlin to complete her teacher training.
12 years later, she still lives in Berlin, but is now working at a school in Brandenburg.
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Deputy Editor in Chief Berliner Zeitung
Moritz Eichhorn read International Relations, Philosophy and Political Theory at St Andrews and the LSE. After work as a contributing editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he became deputy spokesperson for the Free Democratic Party. He left politics in 2020 to co-found a medical device startup but returned to journalism when he joined the politics desk of Berliner Zeitung in 2021, becoming deputy editor in 2023.
Former UNHCR representative in Angola and Mozambique
Dr. Hans Lunshof has a PhD from the University of Utrecht, where he was an academic for several years before joining the UNHCR in the early nineties. He worked for the organisation for 28 years in various legal protection positions in some of the world’s conflict hotspots among others on the Balkans and in Africa. He is the former UNHCR representative in Angola and Mozambique and an expert in Asylum, Migration and International Humanitarian Law. He also served as Head of the Liaison Service of the UNHCR for Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He is a Dutch national, now based in Portugal.
former FPS Fritze Wicke Seeling Intern, Law Student (from October 2025), Ballroom Dancer
Jannes has been an active member of Debating Matters for three years, as well as honing his skills as a debater through numerous competitions and public speaking engagements. He was selected as one of only six students to represent Germany at MACBilbao/MUNBilbao – an international Model United Nations conference that brings together more than 600 students from across the globe. Additionally, he is a former intern at FPS Fritze Ficke Seeling, one of Germany’s leading independent commercial law firms, known for its team of over 140 highly qualified lawyers. Outside academics, Jannes is a successful ballroom dancer—Berlin Champion and Vice Champion 2024 (Hgr. D/C St.), and winner of the world’s largest amateur competition in 2025 (Hgr. C St.).
