Our Team

Frank Smyth is founder and executive director of Global Journalist Security. Frank is also Senior Advisor for Journalist Security at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, where he blogs on journalist security. A veteran journalist and former Emergency Medical Technician, Frank has covered armed conflicts, organized crime and human rights abuses in El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Colombia, Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq, where, in 1991, he was imprisoned for 18 days. Smyth has reported for CBS News, and written for outlets including The Nation, The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs. Through the 1990s, Frank was an arms trafficking investigator for Human Rights Watch. He served for seven years, until 2010, on the board of the European-based International News Safety Institute. Smyth is a former Frank Ochberg Fellow at the Columbia University-based Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and co-author of the Dart Center’s main guide, Tragedies and Journalists. Frank is the main author of CPJ’s Journalist Security Guide, released in four languages along with an IPad application and eBook in 2012.

Smyth is an internationally recognized expert on press freedom, journalist security and related matters. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, the Organization of American States, and the International Commission of Jurists. Frank has appeared on CNN, CNN en Español, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, Reuters Television, Public Broadcasting Service “News Hour with Jim Lehrer,”Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” PRI’s “The World,” C-Span, BBC, BBC Arabic, Radio France Internationale, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya, Alhurra, “Democracy Now!”, WBAI New York, Pacifica, KPFA San Francisco and WNYC New York. Frank has also spoken at forums in cities including Washington, Philadelphia, New York, San Diego, Doha, Berlin, Bonn, Rome, Tonsberg (Norway) and Erbil (Iraq). In 2011 Smyth made a video presentation on journalist security in Spanish for a conference in Guatemala City.

Frank is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and of Boston College. He also continues to work as a journalist and is an MSNBC contributor. Read more about Frank here.

Sara Salam is the personal safety, assault avoidance and self-care director of Global Journalist Security. A Pakistani-German, Sara is among the small group of women in the United States certified as a Krav Maga Level 5 instructor by the Krav Maga Alliance, one of the world’s leading Krav Maga organizations. Adopted by the Israeli Defense Forces, Krav Maga is a simple but effective self defense system that emphasizes instinctive movements, practical techniques, and realistic training scenarios. Sara has worked for several years as a certified rape crisis counselor, and participated in such programs as Rape Aggression Defense. The founder and director of the Washington, D.C.-based martial arts and self defense studio Luminous Warrior, Sara is an expert as well in advanced self defense techniques, including defenses against guns, knives, sticks and other weapons. She is further certified in handgun personal protection tactics. Sara’s approach integrates the physical, mental, emotional and  spiritual aspects of self-care, as well as healing and empowerment. She also has an M.B.A. in International Business from Georgetown University.

Paul Burton is senior trainer for hostile environments and emergency first-aid for Global Journalist Security. Paul served as a British Army Sergeant Major in the elite 148 Commando unit, and as an instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst officer training school. After retiring from military service, Paul was a HEFAT or Hostile Environments and Emergency First-Aid Instructor for the U.K.-based Centurion Risk Assessment Services. He has trained hundreds of journalists, aid workers and others. Working on behalf of relief agencies and non-governmental organizations, Paul conducted reconnaissance, training and security escort missions in numerous hostile areas including Haiti, Indonesia, Argentina, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Cambodia, Venezuela, Kenya and Mexico. He has extensive experience and training in casualty treatment and assistance, jungle, arctic and urban warfare, and civil unrest. He is kept current as an emergency first-aid instructor by the U.K.-based Aid Training & Operations.

Cary Ingram is the self-defense director and a senior personal safety trainer of Global Journalist Security.  Cary is a certified Krav Maga Black Belt Level 6 instructor, an alumnus of Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs, and a former U.S. Army soldier. Cary served as a U.S. Army Team Leader for tactical operations in various theatres including the Balkans, where he also worked closely with international nongovernmental groups and multilateral organizations to implement reconstruction and stabilization operations. He is a former consultant to the U.N. Office of the Secretary General on the U.N. Global Compact encouraging companies to embrace socially sustainable business practices concerning human rights, labor, environmental, and anti-corruption values. He is a lead instructor at GJS partner Luminous Warrior where he specializes in teaching advanced-level self-defense skills and personal safety tactics. At GJS, Cary focuses on journalist and NGO worker personal safety training including effective, non-striking self-defense measures involving awareness, release holds and physical escape techniques.

Mark Basil is security awareness and surveillance detection director of Global Journalist Security. Mark has 15 years experience in the security industry, and he served for 10 years as an Officer with the U.S. Secret Service. Mark spent four years conducting operations in the Secret Service Counter Surveillance Unit Special Operations Division. He coordinated covert protection operations for Presidents Bush and Obama, and for National Special Security Events. Mark also performed security surveys and vulnerability assessments for Secret Service Protective Missions. Mark is a Certified Protection Professional, and a Maryland certified Emergency Medical Technician. Mark has expertise as well in operations security, information security and personal protection. He is the founder and director of Strategic Protection Solutions, LLC in New Canaan, Connecticut. Mark blogs on security and intelligence matters, and teaches security awareness to college undergraduates. He commands a unique curriculum involving scenarios, responses, analyses and observation.

Ester Eriksson is senior trainer and digital safety co-director of Global Journalist Security. Ester has a Master’s degree in engineering from a Scandinavian university. Over the past five years, she has worked as an consultant in the fields of computer security, secure communications, DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service protection and secure hosting. Ester is an experienced trainer of grass-root organizations, university undergraduates, journalists and others in the fields of wireless communication, communication systems, and secure communications.

Arturo Blair is senior trainer and digital safety co-director of Global Journalist Security. Arturo has 15 years experience in computer security, and holds a PhD in Internet Privacy from a Scandinavian university. Arturo has worked as a consultant over the last 10 years in the fields of computer security, DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service mitigation, Internet infrastructure and secure communications. Arturo is an experienced trainer as well as a pioneer in bringing connectivity to remote and isolated areas in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Iason Athanasiadis is senior trainer and cultural responsiveness director of Global Journalist Security. Fluent in Greek, Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Athanasiadis has graduate degrees in Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University, and in Contemporary Iranian Studies from the School of International Studies in Tehran. He was later a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University. An award-winning photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and writer, Athanasiadis has lived and reported in Cairo, Damascus, Sanaa, Tehran, Istanbul and Kabul. He has contributed to the BBC and Channel 4, and written for publications including the International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times (London), Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator. In 2009 Athanasiadis was jailed for three weeks during post-election unrest in Iran. He has also reported from Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Iraq.

Drew Brown is senior trainer of Global Journalist Security. A former U.S. Army Ranger, Drew is both a military combat veteran and a journalist with more than a decade covering armed conflicts and military affairs. Working for Knight-Ridder newspapers, he was a correspondent in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and in Iraq in 2003. In the mid-2000s Drew covered the Pentagon for Knight-Ridder from Washington, D.C. From 2008 through 2011, he reported for Stars and Strips in Iraq and Afghanistan. Drew has also reported from Panama, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the West Bank and Bosnia.

Matt Hansen is associate manager of Global Journalist Security and is involved in every aspect of GJS including both security training and business management. Matt served as Journalist Security Researcher for the Committee to Protect Journalists from 2006 until 2008, culminating in “Deadly News,” a 2008 special report. He conducted the first full-length tabulation and analysis of CPJ’s global death toll of journalists from 1992 to the present, and developed data and analysis for CPJ’s `2008 Year of Impunity’ campaign. Since then, Matt has worked in developing new reporting projects in a variety of digital and local media outlets. He has a B.A. with Honors in Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University.

Sonia Reynolds is finance director of Global Journalist Security. She handles accounting and payroll, and manages GJS’ financial compliance with clients, partners and donors. A Certified Public Accountant and CEO of the Virginia-based firm, Jain and Associates, Sonia has more than twenty years of accounting experience including work at a big four accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche LLP, Fortune 500 companies including General Motors, and nonprofit organizations including the United Way. Sonia’s specialties include direct and indirect cost allocation, and helping for-profit and nonprofit organizations identify and adhere with controls to ensure compliance. She earned her M.B.A. at a top ten business school at the University of Michigan, graduating with “Highest Distinction,” and her B.S. Cum Laude from Kettering University.

Candace Smyth is general counsel of Global Journalist Security. With more than fifteen years experience, her past positions include Law Clerk for Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Law Clerk for Judge Paul D. Stickney, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, Associate at Howrey, LLP, Assistant Public Defender at the New Mexico Public Defender Office, and Attorney-Advisor at the Office of the Solicitor, Division of Indian Affairs, the U.S Department of the Interior. She earned her J.D. Cum Laude at American University Washington College of Law, an M.A. in Latin American Studies and Social Anthropology at the University of Alabama, and a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in Political Science at Auburn University. Candace now has a Family and Partnership Mediation practice based in the Washington, D.C. area.