Meet Our Team

Diane M. Foley is President and Founder of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, JWFLF, which she created in September 2014 less than a month after the public beheading by ISIS in Syria of her son James W. Foley, an American freelance conflict journalist.

Ellen Shearer is the William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. She also is Executive Editor of Medill News Service in Washington and co-director of the Medill National Security Journalism initiative.

Ali Soufan is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Soufan Group. A leading national security and counterterrorism expert, he plays a significant advisory role in global intelligence issues.

Rana H. Altenburg is associate vice president for public affairs at Marquette University. She leads the university’s governmental and community relations priorities and has worked at Marquette since 1996.

Peter has been a member of the Leone, McDonnell & Roberts, Professional Association team since 2003. In his current role as Principal, he is responsible for multiple pension, 401(k) and 403(b) plan audits.

Chris Costa is the executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor for Georgetown University with the Security Studies Program –Walsh School of Foreign Studies.

Richard Gingras is global Vice President, News at Google. In that role Gingras guides Google’s strategy in how it surfaces news on Google search, Google News, and its smart devices.

David Levinson is one of the seven children of Robert “Bob” Levinson, considered to be the longest held hostage in American history. After Bob was taken captive by Iranian authorities in March 2007, David and the Levinson family relentlessly advocated for Bob’s safe return, building relationships across the United States government and private industries, and…

Neda Sharghi is the former Chair of The Bring Our Families Home Campaign, an advocacy campaign led by family members of Americans currently held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.

Jere Van Dyk, from Washington State, went to the University of Oregon (track and field scholarship), was in the U.S. Army, went to graduate school at the l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques, and began his career as an aide to U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson in the U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.