Dessislava Lange-Damianova

At CASBS, Dessi Lange-Damianova will take time to think and explore the space where academic disinformation research meets the realities of journalism on the ground. She’ll be drawing on Bellingcat’s open-source verification methodologies and diving into applied research on how audiences become vulnerable to misinformation, hoping to turn those insights into practical guidance to spot manipulation tactics early and build in protective framing before false narratives gain traction.

Lange-Damianova is chief operating officer of Bellingcat, the globally recognized open-source investigative outlet. Over the past seven years she has helped grow the organization from a six-person team to nearly forty staff, building partnerships along the way across technology, academia, philanthropy, and media. She was also a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, where she was focused on sustainable business models for non-profit news at the intersection of open-source investigation and disinformation defense.

Her career spans nearly three decades and over 85 countries, taking in senior roles in international media development at Free Press Unlimited and Free Voice, and earlier work as a reporter and editor at the BBC World Service. She holds a master’s in journalism and communication studies and executive education credentials from Wharton, LSE, and Oxford. She is a practitioner fellow at CASBS.