CPF Social Media Ambassadors 2026

Hadja Lahbib is the European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, and is the Commissioner in charge of charge of preparedness and crisis management. She works towards ensuring a more robust and proactive approach to European crisis management and civil preparedness, both within our borders and on the global stage. She is tasked with developing and implementing an EU Preparedness Union Strategy, to help the Union to better anticipate, prevent and prepare for crises inside and outside Europe, as well as fostering a culture of preparedness, amongst other things.

Julia Stewart-David (she/her) is the strategic Adviser for Climate Change & Resilience in the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, the European Commission, covering both ECHO’s humanitarian aid and European civil protection dimensions. Julia ensured policy advice on disaster preparedness and societal resilience for the support team of Special Adviser Sauli Niinistö, leading to the adoption of the EU’s Preparedness Union Strategy. She is a strong advocate for inclusive population-preparedness approaches. She’ll be glad to talk to you about making Europe more resilient and how to foster community and individual action.

Géraldine Libreau is the policy officer for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in the Directorate general Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission. In the context of the European Education Area, she has been coordinating an expert group, bringing together ministerial representatives from 34 European countries and stakeholders’ representatives, as well as UNESCO and UNICEF. Before that, Géraldine graduated in European and international public law and dedicated her career to management and evaluation of European policies, programmes and projects in the field of youth and senior volunteering, e-learning, vocational education and training and adult education. She also created EPALE, the e-Platform for Adult Learning in Europe.

Lilyswann Derrien is an officer firefighter in the Gironde Fire and Rescue Service, in southwest France. She is currently the head of a fire and rescue station near Bordeaux, where she works with both professional and volunteer firefighters. Her role is mainly about leading the team, managing the station and ensuring that they are ready to respond to emergencies. But for her, being a firefighter is also very much about people: teamwork, solidarity, commitment and helping others. She is also involved in training and civil protection projects, including international exchanges. She is particularly interested in sharing experiences with other firefighters and learning from different approaches to emergency response across Europe.

Juha-Pekka holds a Bachelor and a Master of Administrative Sciences from the University of Tampere, a police officer’s degree, and a PhD in Applied Economics at the University of Antwerp on behavioural climate change aspects of humanitarian aid and disaster risk management. He is currently a Policy Officer at the Security and Defence Policy Directorate, and previously worked at DG ECHO coordinating the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network’s science pillar.

Elena Xoplaki is Senior Scientist at the CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change, and Principal Investigator of the ERC Synergy Grant EUROpest. She is a leading expert on Mediterranean climate change, with research spanning weather and climate extremes, paleoclimatology, climate reconstructions and model intercomparisons, and the role of atmospheric circulation in shaping European and Mediterranean climate. She serves as Vice-Chair of the ITU/UNEP/UNFCCC/UPU/WMO Global Initiative on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions and has coordinated and contributed to numerous European, Swiss, German, and US-funded research projects.

Tuğkan Tanır is a Disaster Risk Management Analyst at the World Bank Group, where he supports investment projects and technical assistance initiatives focused on disaster risk management, urban resilience, and infrastructure development in Türkiye. He also contributes to strengthening Montenegro’s 112 emergency communication and coordination system through a Technical Assistance Financing Facility initiative. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, he spent three years working with the Government of Türkiye on flood risk assessment and management programs. He holds a BSc in Environmental Engineering from Middle East Technical University and an MSc in Civil Engineering from George Mason University in the United States.

Nathan Clark is an Assistant Professor within the Department of Organization Sciences at Vrije University Amsterdam. His work focuses on societal resilience and crisis governance. He has led research on these topics in several EU funded projects, with a specific focus on legal and institutional intersections among DRR/DRM, technology innovations, and community resilience.

Rein Olesk is an Adviser at Estonia’s Ministry of the Interior, specialising in civil protection. After years of focusing on emergency and risk communication, he’s now taking an everything-civil-protection path in his work. Fittingly, he adds that his favourite bagel is an everything bagel. Consistency is key, clearly!