Executive
Chief Executive Director
Matej Kandrík
Matej is a cofounder of Adapt Institute and a PhD candidate in Political Science with a specialisation in Security and Strategic Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia. In 2016 he did a research stay at the National Defence University of Poland.
He collaborated as an external analyst with Visegrad Insight and as a research fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Since 2017 he was working at STRATPOL – Strategic Policy Institute, between 2019 – 2022 in the position of executive director. His research interests include comprehensive defence, paramilitarism, strategic communication and propaganda.
Deputy Director
Kamila Koníková
Kamila graduated in Political Science at the Comenius University in Bratislava. Her previous experience includes working for non-governmental organization Slovak Security Policy Institute and working for a member of parliament. During her studies
she also took part in an internship at the Foreign Affairs Committee at the National Council of the Slovak Republic and at the think tank MESA10. She is also a Manfred Wörner Seminar/Euro-Atlantik Seminar alumnus.
Project director of Infosecurity.sk
Matej Spišák
He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Central European University in Vienna and also studied at the European Academy of Diplomacy in Warsaw. In 2020, he completed spend one term at The Bard Globalization and
International Affairs. Program (BGIA) in New York. In the past, he worked as the editor-in-chief of the Antipropaganda.sk project. During his studies, he gained experience in state institutions, including internships at the Department of Strategic Communication at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, at the Office of the Deputy State Secretary Róbert Ondrejcsák at the Ministry of Defence, at the Foreign Policy Department at the Office of the President of the Slovak Republic, as well as at the Permanent Mission of the Slovak Republic to the United Nations in New York. He volunteered with Transparency International.
Editor-In-Chief of Adapt publications
Matúš Jevčák
PhD student in political science specializing in security and strategic studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. In his research, he focuses primarily on Turkey and the neighboring regions. In the past, he was an intern at the Institute for Security
and Defense Studies (IBOS) or the Turkish think-tank MURCIR. He also cooperates with the Istanbul based think-tank BILGESAM.
Communications Manager
Jana Kleščová
Graduated in International Trade and European Integration with a focus on disinformation and hybrid warfare at the University of Economics in Prague. As part of her master’s degree, she participated in the Master of International Studies
exchange program at North Carolina State University. In the last year of her studies worked for the Czech think-tank European Values and, together with her classmates, founded an internationally successful branch of the think-tank European Horizons at the University of Economics where she was in charge of PR and communication. Her professional life led her to marketing position in non-profit organization Nexteria at its project Night of Chances and later in one of the largest Slovak full-servise advertising agencies, Istropolitana Ogilvy.
Research Fellows
Peter Dubóczi
Graduated from Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovakia in 2019 with Master’s degree in Political Science. Currently, he is an internal doctoral student at the Department of Political Science at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice,
where his research focuses on the open society concept and liberal democracy in the environment of international relations. He is also the deputy director of the Infosecurity.sk portal and an analyst of the MapInfluenCE project of the Association for International Affairs. He is interested in political philosophy, national populism, cognitive security and hybrid threats.
Viliam Ostatník
Viliam Ostatník, M.A., is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. His research interests include international relations, foreign policy and international security. More specifically,
Viliam is focusing on the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU (CFSP), writing a dissertation thesis about the processes of formation of specific CFSP vis-à-vis Russia and China in recent years. He graduated from the Comenius University (International relations and European affairs, B.A.) and from the University of Bologna (International relations with specific focus on Central and Eastern Europe, M.A.). Viliam also interned at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as Slovak Embassy to the United States of America. He actively participated on various academic conferences and seminars, and conducted active cooperation with not only research institutions home and abroad, but also with government entities and think-tanks, drafting policy-briefs, presenting analyses, risk assessments, and strategies.
Samuel Zilincik
Samuel Zilincik is a doctoral student of security and strategic studies at Masaryk and Leiden Universities and a lecturer at the University of Defence in the Czech Republic. His research interests include military strategy in general and its emotional aspects
in particular. His work has appeared in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Texas National Security Review, the RUSI Journal, and Military Strategy Magazine. He was awarded the 2022 Amos Perlmutter Prize, the 2020 “Under 30s“ Trench Gascoigne Essay Prize and second place in the 2018 Strategy Bridge writing contest.
Michaela Ružičková
Michaela Ružičková is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. She completed an internship at the Office of the President of the Slovak Republic at the Foreign Policy Department. She worked as a
content editor for the Digital Infospace Security Initiative newsletter on disinformation. She is an author and content editor for Infosecurity.sk
Matúš Bučko
Matúš graduated with Bachelor’s degree in field of European Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia. In 2021-2022 he collaborated with web Infosecurity.sk. Since 2021 he writes short texts for STRATPOL – Strategic Policy Institute. His research
interests include international security, external relations of the EU and internal politics of Western Balkan states.
Daša Židuliaková
Daša Židuliaková is a MA student in the Middle East and North Africa at Sciences Po Grenoble in France. Her research focuses on Iran, Shia Islam and religion in the foreign policy of the Middle Eastern countries. She conducted research on the given topics in
Iran, Lebanon and Turkey. She is currently conducting field research as part of her Master’s thesis devoted to “The Role of the Diyanet and Islamic NGOs in Humanitarian Diplomacy of Turkey”.
Alexandra Fratric
Alexandra holds MA and MSc degrees in International Business Development and
Marketing from Austria and Russia, as well as a BBA degree in Business
Administration from Finland. Currently, she is a master’s degree student of
International Relations at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica.
Her previous
work experience includes a Blue Book Program at the European Commission with a focus on enhancing the EU-US cooperation in the fields of technology standards and prevention of misuse of technologies threatening security and human rights. Prior to that, she worked at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria where she was managing numerous artificial intelligence and innovation projects funded by the EU.
work experience includes a Blue Book Program at the European Commission with a focus on enhancing the EU-US cooperation in the fields of technology standards and prevention of misuse of technologies threatening security and human rights. Prior to that, she worked at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria where she was managing numerous artificial intelligence and innovation projects funded by the EU.
Alžbeta Gavalcová
Alžbeta Gavalcová is a student of International Relations and Energy Security at Masaryk University in Brno and graduate of Economic Diplomacy at the University of Economics in Bratislava. She focuses on topics of energy security and green transformation.
During her studies, she had been working for many years at the Slovak Institute for Security Policy on security issues. She also worked at GLOBSEC as a research assistant on the topics of economic growth and sustainability and has recently completed a traineeship at the European Commission. In addition, she previously interned at the British Chamber of Commerce, Trnava Self-governing region and Demagog.sk.
Junior Research Fellows
Matej Rafael Riško
Associated Fellows
Mgr. Adam Potočňák
Adam Potočňák graduated from the master’s program in security and strategic studies at the Faculty of Social Science, Masaryk University in Brno and is currently a doctoral student of political science specializing in international security at the same
faculty/University. He has worked as a research fellow at the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the University of Defence in Brno since December 2019. His research focuses comprise armed conflicts analysis, great power rivalry, security and defence policies of the USA and Russian Federation and security in the Caucasus region. He graduated from several courses on international relations, military security, defence policy and global challenges (in Russia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic).
Communications Manager Assistant
Myroslava Makhynia
Myroslava is currently a student of political science at Comenius University in Bratislava. Her previous work experience includes working in the marketing department of an HR company. During her studies, she also completed several internships, namely in the
National Council of the Slovak Republic, the Department of Public Finance and within the SFPA think tank. Because she likes marketing, but she is also inspired by political science, she has decided to focus on political marketing.
Weronika Grzebalska, Ph.D.
Dr. Weronika Grzebalska is a sociologist and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Weronika’s work centers on the changing nature of the military and defense in contemporary Central and Eastern
Europe, exploring issues such as regional (para)militarism, society-military relations, memory of war, and gender politics of defense. Her doctoral thesis was dedicated to the rise of post-1989 Polish paramilitary organizing amidst structural demilitarization under Pax Europaea. In the past, she was a RethinkCEE fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a Trajectories of Change fellow of the ZEIT-Stiftung, a Kosciuszko Foundation visiting scholar at Clark University, member of the FEPS Young Academics Network, and a president of the Polish Gender Studies Association.
Jaroslav Cabuk
Jaroslav Cabuk is a graduate in International Relations (bachelor’s degree) and in Security Studies (master’s degree) from the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, while, under the Erasmus program, he also
accomplished graduating Military and Defense program in University of Ljubljana. Since March 2022, he has been working in the Defense Policy Section of the Ministry of Defence, where he also completed an internship the previous year. Since 2020, he has been collaborating as an external analyst for the Institute of Strategic Policies and as an author of articles for The Aviation Geek Club. In his work he focuses primarily on the Western Balkans. Jaroslav is a member of the Military History Club Pravda víťazí!, which, as one of the few similar clubs in Europe, focuses on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.