Jane Abbott
Jane graduated from The American College of Greece in Athens, Greece. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Peace Corps staff in Nepal, the Solomon Islands, and Kiribati. She earned a Ph.D. from Colorado State University in community college leadership. She taught mostly integrated humanities in community colleges in Colorado and served as a dean for 12 years. She has also participated in three short-term Fulbrights in Paraguay, Germany, and Thailand. Most recently, Jane directed a program for first generation, low income students at Santa Fe Community College.
Mikhail Alexseev
Mikhail Alexseev, Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University, is a specialist on migration, ethnopolitical conflict and post-Soviet Russia. He is the author of “Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe and the United States” (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and the principal investigator of a multi-year international research project on migration and ethno-religious violence in the Russian Federation. He has published articles in various academic journals and opinion pieces on Soviet and post-Soviet affairs in the New York Times, Newsweek, the Toronto Globe and Mail, USA Today and the Seattle Times.
Mark Asquino
Ambassador Mark L. Asquino is a retired, career Foreign Service Officer. His three decades plus career included postings in Latin America, Europe, Central Asia and Africa. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (2012-15), Spain’s only former colony in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to entering the Foreign Service, Mark was the Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain (1975-76). His BA and Ph.D. are from Brown University. Mark and his wife Jane live in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is a member of the board of directors of the Global Santa Fe. Mark’s memoir, Spanish Connections: My Diplomatic Journey from Venezuela to Equatorial Guinea was published in 2023. The book is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Lonna Rae Atkeson
Lonna Rae Atkeson is a Professor and Regents Lecturer in Political Science at the University of New Mexico where she also Directs the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections, and Democracy and the Institute for Social Research. She is also a member of the MIT Data and Election Science Board (MEDSL) and the American National Election Studies (ANES) Board of Overseers. Her research focuses on election science, election administration, survey research, public policy, voting rights, public opinion, and political behavior. She has authored or edited 4 books, over 50 referred articles and book chapters, numerous policy reports and several amicus curiae briefs. She has been a consultant to the Department of Defense, the US Election Assistance Commission, the Pew Charitable Trusts, various private companies and has served as an expert witness or consultant on several legal cases. Currently she is an Associate Editor for Political Analysis and is the election analyst for KOB-TV. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Golisano Foundation, the Thornburg Foundation, the New Mexico Department of Transportation, the New Mexico Secretary of State, and Bernalillo County, New Mexico. She Received her BA from the University of California, Riverside and her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Daniel Baer
Dan Baer is a Diplomat in Residence at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Affairs. He was U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2013 to 2017. He previously served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 2009-2013. Baer was an assistant professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, a Faculty Fellow at Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics, and a project leader at The Boston Consulting Group. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, BBC, PBS Frontline, Al Jazeera, Sky, and The Colbert Report and his writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, The Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Westword, The Denver Post, and several other publications. He holds a doctorate in International Relations from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a degree in Social Studies and African American Studies from Harvard. He lives in his native Colorado with his husband, Brian.
Catherine Banet
Catherine Banet
Catherine Banet (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, Head of the Department of Energy and Resources Law, University of Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on renewable energy, support schemes and alternative financing models, energy market design, energy infrastructures regulation, climate change mitigation measures including carbon capture and storage (CCS), offshore wind and hydrogen regulation. She has background from private law practice (Norway, France), the European Commission (DG ENV), U.S. diplomatic mission and academia. She is member of the Advisory Academic Group to the International Bar Association, Section for Energy, Environment and Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL), and Academic Fellow at the Center on Regulation in Europe (CERRE). She is the Chair of the Board of the Norwegian Energy Law Association
Michael Battle
A retired US Army Reserve Chaplain, diplomat, academic, prolific writer, university and seminary administrator and President of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia, Michael A. Battle served as US Ambassador to the African Union (2009-13) as well as US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2010-13) both headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
From January 2015-2017, he served as Executive Vice President/Provost at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Center provides academic and experiential engagements on the broad issues of international freedom and combatting slavery.
In 2014 Ambassador Battle served as Senior Advisor to the African Bureau of the US State Department for the first Summit of African Heads of State and Government hosted in the US by an American president and managed the diplomatic side of the Summit.
He received his BA from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, Master of Divinity from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and his Doctor of Ministry with Emphasis in Ethics from Howard University, Washington, DC. He also completed the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) at Harvard University Graduate School of Education and the Millennial Leadership Institute, sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. He is a graduate of the US Army Reserve Command and General Staff College.
Ambassador Battle is married to the former Linda Ann McClure. They have three adult children, and five grandchildren.
Ralph Begleiter
During two decades as CNN’s “world affairs correspondent,” Ralph Begleiter was the network’s most widely-traveled reporter, covering five U.S. Secretaries of State and three Presidents. During the 1980s and 1990s, he covered U.S. diplomacy, interviewed countless world leaders, hosted the public affairs program “Global View,” and co-anchored CNN’s “International Hour.” Later, he hosted the nationally broadcast PBS program “Great Decisions.” He has worked in 100 countries on all 7 continents, including taking university students to Cuba, South America, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Antarctica. At the invitation of the U.S. government, Begleiter has taught journalists in Cambodia, Thailand, Jordan, Syria and Taiwan, and media-related classes for U.S. National Security Agency employees as well as lectured for a wide array of organizations in the US, the UK and abroad.
During nearly two decades at the University of Delaware, he was founding Director of the Center for Political Communication, and brought more than 30 years of broadcast journalism experience to his award-winning instruction in communication, journalism, and political science. In 2004-5, Begleiter successfully used the Freedom of Information Act in the United States to prompt public release of hundreds of photos taken by the U.S. government of fallen American soldiers returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq in flag-draped caskets. The ban on visibility of returning casualties was lifted by the Pentagon in 2009. For this effort, in 2012 Common Cause of Delaware honored Begleiter with its John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award.
He earned his Honors B.A. in political science at Brown University and his M.S. in journalism at Columbia.
Jeff Bingaman, Jr.
Jeff Bingaman was born on October 3, 1943. He grew up in the southwestern New Mexico community of Silver City. His father was a chemistry professor and chair of the science department at Western New Mexico University. His mother taught in the public schools.
After graduating from Western (now Silver) High School in 1961, Jeff attended Harvard College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government in 1965. He then entered Stanford Law School where he met, and later married, fellow law student Anne Kovacovich.
Upon earning his law degree from Stanford in 1968, Jeff and Anne returned to New Mexico. They have one son, John.
After law school, Jeff spent one year as a New Mexico Assistant Attorney General and eight years in private law practice in Santa Fe. He ran for Attorney General of New Mexico in 1978 and served four years in that position. In 1982 voters elected him to the United States Senate. At the end of his fifth term, he chose not to seek re-election and completed his service in the Senate on January 3, 2013.
At the time of his retirement from the Senate, he was chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He also served on the Finance Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.
Beginning In April 2013, he spent a year as a Distinguished Fellow with the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford Law School.
In 2015, he taught a seminar on the functioning of Congress in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. In 2022, the University of New Mexico Press published his book, BREAKDOWN: Lessons for a Congress in Crisis.
Jeff and Anne live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Donald M Bishop
Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black served 25 years as a Foreign Service Officer with USAID, achieving the rank of Minister Counselor in the Senior Foreign Service. She most recently served as USAID Mission Director for Cambodia and for Mali, managing a diverse portfolio including health, education, agriculture, and governance.
Ms. Black served as the Deputy Mission Director for USAID Afghanistan and as economic and urban environment program director in India, South Africa, and Poland. Ms. Black began her professional career in community economic development in Boston, Massachusetts, following completion of a master degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ms. Black now lives in New Mexico, working occasionally on international development assignments, and volunteer engagements.
Melissa Bokovoy
Chair and Professor of History
Regents Lecturer, The University of New Mexico
Melissa Bokovoy is professor and chair of the history department at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Bokovoy obtained her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington in the field of Eastern Europe since 1453. She has been at the University of New Mexico since 1991. She is the author of Peasants and Communists: Politics and Ideology in the Yugoslav Countryside, 1941–1953 (Pittsburgh, 1998), which won the Barbara Jelavich Prize of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She is co-editor of State-Society Relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997) and co-author of Sharing the Stage: Biography and Gender in Western Civilization, 2 vols. (Houghton-Mifflin, 2003) and Sharing the World Stage: Biography and Gender in World History, 2 vols. (Cengage, 2009). She has published numerous articles and book chapters on 20th-century Yugoslavia. UNM has recognized her for both her scholarship and teaching. In 2001, she was appointed University of New Mexico Regents’ Lecturer. In 2011, she was named UNM Outstanding Teacher of the Year. In 2013, she became co-principal investigator of UNM’s AHA Career Diversity Pilot Program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is now completing a manuscript on the politics of commemoration in interwar Yugoslavia.
Professor Max Boykoff
Max Boykoff is a Professor in the Environmental Studies Department (where he now serves as Chair) at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is also a Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Among his ongoing work, Max was a contributing author to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on mitigation and policy action that was released April 4 and he has been an advisor on the ‘Don’t Look Up’ film project.
Karl-Braithwaite
Karl Braithwaite, SFWAF Member
Karl Braithwaite is a specialist in the relationship between science and government; a former Director of Government Relations for Sandia and Senior Manager for Los Alamos National Laboratories having dealt with national security issues, environment and energy topics, and science and technology policy issues over the years retiring from public service after 49 years; and Dean of the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. Currently a leader in the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, his PhD in political science is from the University of Wisconsin.
Beatrice Camp
Ms. Camp’s 32-year career as a foreign service officer was evenly split between the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Department of State, with assignments in Beijing, Bangkok, Stockholm, Budapest, Chiang Mai, Shanghai, and Washington, DC. With her appointment in Shanghai, Ms. Camp became the first woman, and the first public diplomacy officer, to lead a U.S. Consulate in China. In addition, she twice managed U.S. participation in major world’s fairs – Shanghai Expo 2010 and Milan Expo 2015 — and served as Senior Advisor at the Smithsonian.
Before joining the foreign service, Ms. Camp taught English at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand, worked as a journalist in Washington, DC, and helped pioneer the first electronic news service at Dow Jones in New York. She is married to retired FSO David Summers.
Alan B. Carr
Alan B. Carr currently serves as a Program Manager and the Senior Historian for Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Los During his tenure as a laboratory historian, which began in 2003, Alan has produced several publications and lectures pertaining to the Manhattan Project, nuclear testing history, and the historical evolution of LANL. He has lectured for numerous professional organizations and has been featured as a guest on many local, national, and international radio and television programs. Before coming to Los Alamos, Carr completed his graduate studies at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Deborah Cornelius
Stephen Creskoff
Paul Cruickshank
Paul Cruickshank comes from a military background, having served with the British Army for 20 years. He is a graduate of the British Army Command and Staff College (1994-1995), and was later appointed Member of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999, for his contribution to strategic military planning for peace support operations in the Balkans. His last deployment in the army was to Afghanistan at the end of 2001 as part of the international effort to remove the Taliban regime and commence reconstruction across the country.
Paul joined the UN in Afghanistan in 2002 and helped set up, plan and implement the Afghan Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme. At the end of disarmament and demobilization, he moved to Indonesia (Banda Aceh) to set up and manage support to the Indonesian Government’s response to the 2004 tsunami. In 2006, Paul was posted to Iraq as Senior Advisor on Security Sector Reform. In 2009, he moved to Kosovo to manage the Support to Security Sector Reform programme, before returning to Afghanistan in 2010 to set up and run UK DFID’s M&E programme in Helmand province. He re-joined the UN in early 2011, before being posted to South Sudan as Director and Representative in early 2015. Paul returned to Afghanistan in May 2017 as UNOPS’ Director & Representative, a position he held until retiring from the UN at the end of 2021.
Paul is now the founder and CEO of Fillan Rose Ltd, a discreet management consultancy seeking, in both the public and private sectors, to apply lessons learnt over the last 20 years so that more can be done with less, and all can be done better.
David Douglas
Douglas practiced environmental law and wrote extensively in the 1980’s and 1990’s on global drinking water issues. He is the author of “Wilderness Sojourn: Notes in the Desert Silence,” “Letters of Faith: Memoirs of an Appalachian Conversion,” and co-author with his wife, Deborah, of “Pilgrims in the Kingdom: Travels in Christian Britain.” He and Deborah live in Santa Fe and have two grown daughters and five grandchildren.
James Doyle
Evelyn A. Early
Her publications include: Baladi Women of Cairo: Playing with an Egg and a Stone, the co-edited Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, so popular in university courses it is in the third edition, “Telepreachers and Talk Shows: The Fight over Egyptian Airwaves,” “Syrian Television Drama: Permitted Political Discourse,” “Fertility and Fate,” “Poetry and Pageants: Growing up in the Syrian Vanguard.” She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dr. Evan Ellis
Dr. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American Studies with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors, as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region.
Dr. Ellis has published over 400 works, including five books: the 2009 book China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores, the 2013 book The Strategic Dimension of Chinese Engagement with Latin America, the 2014 book, China on the Ground in Latin America, the 2018 book, Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the 2022 book, China Engages Latin America: Distorting Development and Democracy?
Dr. Ellis previously served as on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P) with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean (WHA), as well as International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) issues.
In his academic capacity, Dr. Ellis presented his work in a broad range of business and government forums in 27 countries four continents. He has given testimony on Latin America security issues to the US Congress on various occasions, has discussed his work regarding China and other external actors in Latin America on a broad range of radio and television programs, and is cited regularly in the print media in both the US and Latin America for his work in this area. Dr. Ellis has also been awarded the Order of Military Merit José María Córdova by the Colombian government for his scholarship on security issues in the region.
Eric Farnsworth
Eric Farnsworth has led the Washington office of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society since 2003, during which time the stature and influence of the organization has grown significantly. He maintains an important thought leadership and advocacy role across the broad range of issues affecting the Western Hemisphere, including U.S. relations, economic development, trade, and energy; Asia-Latin American relations and global governance issues; security; and democracy. He is a widely-sought after conference speaker and media commentator, and has published numerous articles and opinion pieces in leading newspapers and policy journals.
Mr. Farnsworth began his career in Washington with the US Department of State. During his time in government he served in positions of increasing responsibility in the foreign policy and trade communities, from Western Hemisphere Affairs at State to the Office of the US Trade Representative, culminating in a three and a half year appointment as the senior advisor to the White House Special Envoy for the Americas. In this capacity he played an important role in developing and implementing the administration’s policies toward the Western Hemisphere.
Previously, Mr. Farnsworth was managing director of Manatt Jones Global Strategies, an advisory and strategic consulting group. He also worked in the global public policy division of Bristol-Myers Squibb, and in the US Senate with Sam Nunn (D-GA) and the US House of Representatives with John Edward Porter (R-IL). In 2016 he was decorated by the King of Spain for his work to promote bilateral and regional relations.
2. “Climate change and mass media: The disconnect between science and public perception”
Douglas Fox
A guest lecturer for science writing and environmental programs at the University of California, Stanford University, and Iowa State University, he was a co-author for The Science Writers’ Handbook (Da Capo Press, 2013). Doug’s stories have garnered national awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), the American Society of Journalists and Authors (2011), and the National Association of Science Writers (2013); his stories have been anthologized in The Best American Science Writing (2012), The Best Technology Writing (2010), and The Best American Science & Nature Writing (2009).
Linda Pappas Funsch
She has taught at several colleges in New York and Maryland, including Iona College, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Hood College and — for 15 years and currently — at Frederick (MD) Community College’s Institute for Learning in Retirement. She has guest lectured at Georgetown University, the World Affairs Council, the World Bank, the National Defense University, Mary Washington University, and Baylor University, among others. She has also been interviewed on the Voice of America. In addition, she is engaged in a number of ecumenical outreach activities, aimed at fostering an understanding and appreciation of the shared values among the Abrahamic faith traditions.
Judy Garber
Dr. Eduardo Gamarra
Eduardo A. Gamarra is a tenured full professor of political science in the department of politics and international relations at Florida International University. He has been at FIU since 1986 where he also directed the Latin American and Caribbean Center LACC from 1994 to 2007. In February 2016 he was appointed founding director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum at the Stephen Green School of International and Public Affairs.
Gamarra obtained his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987. At Pitt, Gamarra worked under the mentorship of James M. Malloy, one of the leading experts on Bolivia and the Andes. With Malloy he wrote his first book entitled Revolution and Reaction: Bolivia 1964-1984. He has since written, co-written or co-edited twelve books and nearly one hundred scholarly articles on the Latin American and Caribbean Affairs.
Jeannie Hope Gibson
Jeannie Hope Gibson: I was born in Gallup and grew up among the Navajo and Zuni people. My grandfather owned the Gallup Independent, and my aunts lived and taught at Zuni Pueblo. We spent many hours at our friends ‘ceremonial dances, where I first remember sitting on a Navajo rug watching flames from the flickering campfires join in the swirling colors of the dancers, casting huge shadows of motion on the towering red cliffs next to us. As the drums pounded their rhythmic beat, and the singers changed, the echos bounded off the towering rock walls and filled me with a sense of peace and wonderment.
While my retirement as a paralegal is from Lockheed/Martin, my love for the arts never took a back seat. My formal studies in painting and sculpture began at 13 at the Corcoran Gallery and School of Art in Washington, DC. Later working on Capitol Hill in DC, I continued studies at the Corcoran.
Archeology is my greatest passion, next to painting. For a number of years since 1990, I assisted in recording ancient rock art panels which were included in the official recordings for the state of Colorado. I have spent many hours in a tent precisely copying bison bones in situ at a large excavation in Nebraska. As a member of the Colorado Archeological Society, I was dedicated to all efforts to preserve countless Ancient Puebloan sites from further weathering or vandalism, volunteering for work at site such as Ute Mountain Tribal Park near Mesa Verde. Several of my drawings of local area rock art panels are included in the permanent collection at the Rio Grande Museum in Del Norte, Colorado.
Action Task Force”
Javier Gonzales
community taught him respect and diversity. As Mayor, Javier is actively engaged in making Santa Fe the leader in the green economy.
Javier currently also serves as the Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability for Rosemont Realty, where he oversees the greening of office buildings to increase their energy efficiency. He has served on the Santa Fe County Commission and in 2001 was elected as the first Hispanic president of the National Association of Counties which represents more than 3,000 counties nationwide. He served two terms as chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico and remains active in promoting better education for youth as he did through service on the Board of Regents for New Mexico State University and New Mexico Highlands University.
Rose Gottemoeller
Rose Gottemoeller is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation, and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.
Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. She is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Todd Greentree
Dr. Raul Gouvea
His full vitae is available at http://www.mgt.unm.edu
Gary Grossman
Dr. Gary M. Grossman, is the Founding Associate Director of Academic Programs and Associate Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. He is also currently a Visiting Scientist with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. He offers more than three decades of experience in the management of political, social, and technological development projects around the world with a particular focus on Turkey and Eurasia and was a Fulbright research scholar at METU in Ankara. Dr. Grossman received his MS and PhD in Political Sociology from Purdue University and did his undergraduate work at Raymond College of the University of the Pacific.
Jesse Guillen
Renate Hahlen
Dr Hahlen previously worked on EU cooperation with Algeria, Jordan, Vietnam and Laos and held posts in the German federal administration related to international and bilateral debt initiatives for developing countries and on EU related issues. She studied in Germany, Switzerland and Turkey, graduated in law and holds a PhD in international private and comparative law from Germany’s Freiburg University.
Ambassador Michael (Mike) A. Hammer
Ambassador Michael (Mike) A. Hammer was named the United States Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa on June 1, 2022. His most recent assignment abroad was as the U.S. ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2018-2022.
Ambassador Hammer is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service class of Minister-Counselor. His over three decades of service include serving as Acting Senior Vice President of the National Defense University (NDU) and Deputy Commandant of NDU’s Eisenhower School. He as U.S. ambassador to Chile from 2014-2016. Prior to his appointment in Chile, Ambassador Hammer served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from March 2012 to August 2013.
Before joining the Bureau of Public Affairs, Ambassador Hammer served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Director for Press and Communications, and National Security Council Spokesman from January 2009 to January 2011. He previously served at the National Security Council as Deputy Spokesman from 1999 to 2000 and as the Director of Andean Affairs from 2000 to 2001.
Ambassador Hammer’s overseas postings include Bolivia, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. His other State Department assignments include the Operations Center and serving as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Ambassador Hammer has received several awards, including the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Department’s Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, and several Superior Honor awards.
Ambassador Hammer earned a Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He also earned Master’s degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and from the National War College at the National Defense University.
Suzanne Hayden
Suzanne Hayden spent over 30 years as a US and International prosecutor. She was a senior prosecutor for the Department of Justice and a trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia where she started the first UN financial intelligence unit to follow the money of Slobodan Milosevic and supervised one of the earliest global stolen assets investigations against a sitting State’s leader. She was the DOJ legal advisor in Russia and Turkey and drafted anti-money laundering, terrorist finance and asset forfeiture legislation at the request of over 25 countries. Ms. Hayden served as the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first national security coordinator and represented the DOJ in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setter for antimony laundering and terrorist financing.
During her career, Ms. Hayden served as a senior advisor for the US Intelligence Community, the US Department of Justice, the US Department of the Treasury Office of Technical Assistance, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Austria. She is on the Board of Trustees of the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and sits on two advisory boards for illicit trade and anti-corruption. Ms. Hayden is currently the legal strategist for International Wildlife Trust, an NGO formed to build prosecutable cases against organized crime groups whose wild life criminal activities have thus far remained insulated and untouchable. Ms. Hayden continues to follow her passion for Native American issues and is working on a strategy to address the US tragedy of murdered and missing Native American women and girls through investigation, advocacy and legislation.
Siegfried S. Hecker
Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the department of management science and engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Hecker was Co-Director of cisac from 2007-2012.
He served as the fifth director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986-1997. Hecker received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in metallurgy from Case Western Reserve University. His professional interests include nuclear weapons policy, plutonium research, global nuclear risk reduction with Russia, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Iran, and threats of nuclear terrorism.
John Herbst
Ed Hildebrand
Ed Hildebrand, SFWAF Member
Ed Hildebrand has multidisciplinary experience in the biosciences and in national and international science and technology policy analysis. After earning a Ph.D. in biophysics from the Pennsylvania State University, he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory where his research focused on the international human genome project. While at LANL he also served in postings to the Foreign Service as Science Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in London and to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. More recently, Ed was a science and engineering analyst with a not for profit national and homeland security contractor. He is currently a member of the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum Board.
John Holden
John Holden, Senior Director, McClarty Associates, leads McClarty’s China practice. He has decades of experience doing business in China. He has previously served as president of the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York and has served as Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China in Beijing. John is currently a Senior Associate (Non-Resident) with the Trustee Chair for Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Laura S. H. Holgate
Senior Nonresident Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Ambassador Laura S. H. Holgate is currently a consultant to the Third Way’s project on advanced nuclear reactors and national security, and to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Ambassador Holgate represented the United States at the International Atomic Energy Agency and UN offices in Vienna. In this role, she advanced U.S. priorities in nonproliferation, nuclear security, and verification of the Iran nuclear deal. Amb. Holgate was previously the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council, where she coordinated the development of national policies and programs to thwart terrorist access to and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. She was the U.S. Sherpa to the Nuclear Security Summits and co-led the Global Health Security Agenda. Amb. Holgate held senior positions at the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative as well as the Departments of Energy and Defense, in which she designed and implemented innovative approaches to reducing the weapons of mass destruction threats posed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Amb. Holgate holds degrees from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sarah Hood
Vicki Huddleston
Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, is an American diplomat with lengthy expertise in foreign, defense, and development policy. She was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense and led American diplomatic missions in Mali, Madagascar, Cuba and Ethiopia. In Haiti she was Chief of Party for a USAID Value Chain project. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and as a Congressional Fellow worked on the staff of former Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).
Vicki’s opinion pieces on Cuba, Mali, and Ethiopia have appeared in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post. She is the author of Our Woman in Havana and co-author of Learning to Salsa – New Steps in Cuban Relations.
Robert Hunter
Ambassador Robert Hunter served in the LBJ White House (education) at the time of the Great Society; was Ted Kennedy’s first foreign policy advisor; and was lead official on Europe and the Middle East on the Carter NSC staff. He was US ambassador to NATO (1993-1998) and was a principal architect and the lead negotiator of the post-Cold War transformation of NATO. He served on the Defense Policy Board and State’s International Security Advisory Board. He has taught at 5 universities; written 1200+ publications; taken part in 8 presidential campaigns; and written speeches for more serious candidates for president (12) than anyone else in US history. BA: Wesleyan University; PhD, London School of Economics.
Brian Hurd
He has lectured and provided expert assistance in various countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Tunisia, Spain, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Australia, and Italy. He has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research and as President of the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) Board of Directors.
Raffaella Iodice presently serves as Head of Unit for “Asia, Latin America, Caribbean and Pacific” and Deputy Director at the Directorate General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) after serving as Head of the “Middle East/Gulf, South Asia and Central Asia” at the European Commission “Development and International Cooperation” department (IN TPA).
Born in Italy, she left her home just after graduating from high school, to attend the university in Brussels (ULB). Just after her final University degree, in 1991, she joined the European Commission. Over the years, Raffaella has become an internationally respected specialist of development, particularly in the areas of war-torn countries and the Middle East. She has held posts in Palestine during the second Intifada (from 2002 to 2007), where she was in charge of development cooperation activities and relations with the Palestinian Authority, and in Egypt (from end of 2007 to end 2011), where she managed political and development relationships with the government. She lived in Cairo during the Tahir revolution and once back to Brussels at the end of 2011, she has been actively involved in all EU activities in the region during the so-called Arab Spring. She has also served as Head of Unit for the Mediterranean countries with frequent travels to Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine…
In her capacity, she is now actively involved also in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iraq, countries she regularly visits.
She commands several languages. Among them: French, English, Spanish, German, Hebrew and some Arabic.
Ambassador William H. Itoh (rtd)
Ambassador William H. Itoh serves as Professor of the Practice in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is also a Senior Advisor to McLarty Associates, an international business consulting firm. Ambassador Itoh had a distinguished career in public service with the Department of State. From 1995-1999 he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand. Prior to his appointment to Bangkok, he was Executive Secretary of the National Security Council at the White House (1993-1995).
During his career as a Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Itoh served abroad in the U.S. Embassy in London (1976-1978) and as the U.S. Consul General to Western Australia in Perth (1986-1990), in addition to his assignment in Thailand. His Washington assignments included service in the Office of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the Bureau of Congressional Relations. He was Deputy Executive Secretary and Acting Executive Secretary of the Department of State from 1991-1993. As Ambassador to Thailand, Ambassador Itoh was the 1998 recipient of the Department of State’s Charles S. Cobb Award for outstanding support of the American business community. He was also awarded an honorary PHD in Economics by Khon Kaen University, presented by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in December 1998, in recognition of his efforts in support of Thailand’s recovery during the Asian financial crisis.
Ambassador Itoh was born in Tokyo, Japan on May 30, 1943, and attended primary and secondary schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a graduate of the
University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Social Science (1966) and an M.A. in History and Anthropology (1971). He was Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Humboldt (1972-1973). Ambassador Itoh was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force reserve in 1967 and served on active duty 1968-1969. He attended the National Defense University and was a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College class of 1991. He also attended the Capstone General Officers Course at NDU in 1995.
Ambassador Itoh is married to the former Melinda White, a professional educator. They now reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They have two daughters, Charlotte, a lawyer in Albuquerque; and Caroline, an Associate Vice President with the National Wildlife Federation, residing in the United Kingdom. Ambassador Itoh is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kenan Institute Asia in Bangkok. He is past Chairman of the Albuquerque Committee on Foreign Relations and past President of the World Affairs Council of Albuquerque. He is also a member of the Battlefield Preservation Trust and serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the Glorieta Battlefield Preservation Society.
Susanne E. Jalbert, Ph.D
Susanne E. Jalbert, Ph.D., is a gender equity advocate, economic development activist, and a women’s rights political strategist with over 25 years of experience on 85+ assignments with 35+ USAID implementers in about 50 countries on 4 continents. Dr. Jalbert is often at the nexus of conflict working toward peace and stability. Currently, she presently serves as Senior Advisor for Chemonics International. Dr. Jalbert designs strategic policy models for economic escalation pertaining to the equitable inclusion of women into growing economies. In Afghanistan 2018-2020, she served as the Chief of Party for USAID-Afghanistan Promote Women in Government program. She also served as Chief of Party for the USAID-Moldova Anti-Trafficking Initiative and conducted ground-breaking research to counter human trafficking.
Dr. Jalbert publishes and speaks on the vital role of women in the economy, as well as efforts to STOP! trafficking of human beings, contributes to peace processes, gender lens leadership, and female roles in nation building. Dr. Jalbert holds a master’s and Ph.D. in education and human resources from Colorado State University and a B.A. in management from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California.
Dr. Joe Jupille
Charles “Chick” Keller
His earliest work at LANL involved photographing total solar eclipses from high altitude aircraft. Later, he helped to pioneer the Lab’s computer modeling of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. He devoted twenty years to the study of climate change—in particular human induced global warming including a sabbatical at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition Keller was a co-founder of the Pajarito Environmental Education Center where he has established a modest herbarium of some 3,000 archived plants from the Jemez Mountains. He has had a life-long passion for science and nature and enjoys communicating this to others.
Matt Korda
Matt Korda is a Senior Research Associate and Project Manager for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where he co-authors the Nuclear Notebook––an authoritative open-source estimate of global nuclear forces and trends. Matt is also an Associate Researcher with the Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Previously, he worked for the Arms Control, Disarmament, and WMD Non-Proliferation Centre at NATO HQ in Brussels. Matt received his MA in International Peace and Security from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
Kristie Kenney
Ambassador Kenney served as the 32nd Counselor of the State Department, the Departments fifth ranking official position and on behalf of Secretary Kerry, led delegations to Latin America and Asia.
As Ambassador to Thailand from 2011-2014, Ambassador Kenney was the first female to head U.S. Embassy Bangkok, one of the United States largest diplomatic missions with over 3,000 staff.
She was the Ambassador to the Philippines from 2006-2010, the first woman to hold that post. She coordinated U.S. military and development assistance over multiple natural disasters. During this and subsequent assignments, she pioneered use of social media by U.S. Ambassadors to connect with diverse and dynamic foreign audiences. Earlier, she served as Ambassador to Ecuador where she advanced U.S. business and security interests in Latin America.
Ambassador Kenney holds a Bachelor’s degree from Clemson University and a Master’s degree from Tulane University. She also attended the National War College in Washington, D.C. She speaks Spanish and French, as well as some Thai and Tagalog. She is married to Ambassador William Brownfield. When not rooting for Washington area sports teams, Ambassador Kenney enjoys travel, skiing, and connecting with social media friends around the world.
Daniel Kochis
His writings have been featured in Forbes, Foxnews, RealClearWorld, the National Interest, and the Washington Times. A frequent media contributor, Daniel has provided expert analysis in hundreds of interviews for foreign and domestic outlets including Al-Jezeera English, FoxNews, National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, and Voice of America. Daniel has presented at the Transatlantic Think Tank Conference in Brussels, Belgium as well as the US Southern Command, and has provided parliamentary evidence to the UK House of Lords Select Committee on the Arctic.
Kendra Koivu
Ellen Laipson
John Lange
Ambassador John E. Lange (Ret.) is Senior Fellow for Global Health Diplomacy at the United Nations Foundation, where he focuses on issues related to global health security and the work of the World Health Organization. He has held leadership positions in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the Measles & Rubella Initiative. Earlier, he spent four years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation engaging in high-level global health advocacy with African governments.
Lange had a distinguished 28-year career in the Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State, where he was a pioneer in the field of global health diplomacy and a leader in pandemic preparedness and response. He was the State Department’s Special Representative on Avian and Pandemic Influenza from 2006-2009. He also served tours of duty as Deputy Inspector General; Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator at the inception of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; and U.S. Ambassador to Botswana and Special Representative to the Southern African Development Community (1999-2002), where HIV/AIDS was his signature issue.
Lange led the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as Chargé d’Affaires at the time of the August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda bombing, for which he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award. Earlier, he had tours of duty at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the American Embassies in Lomé, Togo; Paris, France; and Mexico City, Mexico.
He has an M.S. degree from the National War College and J.D. and B.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Henry (Hank) A. Levine
Before entering the private sector Mr. Levine spent 25 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of State. In this capacity he served twice in the State Department’s Office of China Affairs, twice at the US Embassy in Beijing, and as US Consul General in Shanghai. Following his tour in Shanghai he served for three years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of Commerce. In that capacity he was the senior China advisor to two secretaries of Commerce and lead negotiator for the annual US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.
Mr. Levine is a member of the National Committee on US China Relations and a member of the Advisory Council of the US-China Education Trust, where he previously served as Executive Director. Mr. Levine has a B.A. in Political Science from Bucknell University. He did graduate work in international affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is a graduate, with distinction, from the US National War College. He is fluent in Chinese (Mandarin).
Fernando Lopez-Alves
Nancy Lubin
Nancy Lubin is President, JNA Associates, Inc, a research and consulting firm on the former USSR, especially the Caucasus/ Central Asia. She has consulted for over 80 private foundations, international donors & financial institutions, US government agencies/ contractors, the media, and other private industry ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to small non-profits Her cross-sectoral work, largely focused on corruption and navigating these informal economic/political systems, includes designing, negotiating, implementing & evaluating projects/ joint ventures on the ground; conducting political risk assessments, survey research & other analyses; consulting for ABC News and PBS documentaries; and advising corporations, donors, & legal counsel in the US, Europe and Japan.
Prior to JNA, Lubin was an associate professor, Carnegie Mellon University; Soviet specialist and project director, US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment; and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center (1990-91), US Institute of Peace (1992-93), and elsewhere. She is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and was Director/ Principal Author of a CFR project chaired by Sen. Sam Nunn; has served on the Board of Trustees and Board of Advisors of the Eurasia Foundation and other boards; and was Senior Consultant for International Relations and Engagement, CityDance. She holds a PhD from Oxford University; BA, Magna Cum Laude, Harvard; studied in Moscow and Leningrad; and was one of the first Westerners to research in Central Asia for a year, at Tashkent University, Uzbekistan (1978/79). She has been to the region countless times since.
Arvid Lundy
Juha Makikalli
Juha Mäkikalli was appointed Honorary Consul of Finland for the State of Colorado in May 2010. He presently serves as the Dean of the Colorado Consular Corps. A native of Finland, Juha majored in international marketing and received a Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration degree from Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland in 1993. He relocated to Colorado in 2000 to establish a U.S. subsidiary for Novo Group, a Finnish information technology company. Since 2006, he has been working as a business development executive and business integration program manager for Jeppesen Sanderson, a subsidiary of the Boeing Company.
Elizabeth Manak
Dr. Elizabeth Manak is a South Asia and nonproliferation specialist. In her thirty plus years with the Central Intelligence Agency, Elizabeth worked in a variety of positions both in the US and abroad. Most recently, she was an adviser to a US Embassy working on topics of interest in South Asia. For two years prior to that, Elizabeth was the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia in the National Intelligence Council.
Elizabeth also was Chief for Community Collection Strategies in the Office of Weapons Intelligence and Nonproliferation and Executive Officer for the Nonproliferation Center. From 1996 to 1998 she was Deputy Director in the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence where she managed a unit of intelligence analysts and provided direction and oversight to the analytic processes and products of the intelligence components at the National Laboratories. At DOE, she also served as Division Chief for Nuclear Weapons Analysis, overseeing programs of analysis at the National Laboratories.
Prior to working at DOE, she was Deputy Chief of Analysis and DI Proliferation Coordinator in the DCI’s Nonproliferation Center and served as a Branch Chief in the Office of Near East and South Asian Analysis. Elizabeth was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, the Career Intelligence Medal and a number of other meritorious awards.
Before joining the federal government, Elizabeth was program manager for the Southeast Asia Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she directed a Speakers program and publishing house. A California native who grew up on Guam, Elizabeth received her B.A. and M.A. in History from California State University and her Ph.D. in South Asian History and Agricultural Economics on an East West Center Grant at the University of Hawaii.
Shana McDermott
climate change which require a detailed understanding of both biological and economic processes. Collaborating with natural scientists and policy-makers has added a practical
dimension to her modeling approaches and potential policy implications. She has published in top field journals, including Ecological Economics, Land Economics, and Ecological
Applications, and contributed to several chapters in environmental economics books. Prior to coming to UNM, Shana was a postdoctoral research associate at Dartmouth College in the departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies.
Ted McNamara
He retired in 1997 as Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs, but returned in 2001 to be Senior Advisor to the Secretary on terrorism and homeland security. He previously served as Ambassador to Colombia, Special Assistant to the President, Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism, Special Negotiator for Panama, and other senior positions. From 1998 to 2001 he was President and CEO of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas in New York.
He was Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, reporting to the President, Congress, and Director of National Intelligence (2006-09). He is also Adjunct Professor in the Elliot School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.
A career diplomat with postings in Colombia, Russia, Congo, and France, he has written extensively on Latin America, terrorism, arms control, non-proliferation and regional security. He is the recipient of numerous distinguished service awards and has appeared on the PBS Newshour, CNN, NPR, BBC, VOA and other national and international news media.
Michaela Millender
Michaela Millender is a Research Analyst at The Soufan Center. Her research focuses on far-right extremism and terrorism, the destruction of cultural heritage, and the intersection of global security with migration, humanitarian access, and multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations. Prior to joining The Soufan Center, Michaela served as a research analyst at the Global Disinformation Index, as well as for the United Nation’s UN75 Initiative which produced the report “UN75: The Future We Want, the UN We Need”.
She also spent several years working in the non-profit sector where she provided support in cross-cultural communication, leadership development, grant management, and event coordination. Michaela was awarded a Master of Science in Global Affairs from New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and her B.A is from the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies in International and Area Studies with a minor in Italian language.
Kevin L. Miller
is Georgia Chapter President and Membership Coordinator of the Korea Defense Veterans Association (KDVA). He served in the United States Army for six years, and for the past 25 years has served in middle and senior management roles within the defense industry and international sales markets.
Mary Minow
Molly Montgomery
Ms. Molly Montgomery is currently a Vice President with Albright Stonebridge Group’s Europe practice. Prior to this position, she served as Special Advisor to the Vice President for Europe and Eurasia, where she advised Vice President Mike Pence on strategy, policy development, and engagement toward Europe. Ms. Montgomery also served as Deputy Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where she helped to lead the U.S. response to the crisis in Ukraine and developed strategies to fight corruption, spur democratic and market-oriented reforms, and increase energy security throughout the region. Her career in the U.S. Foreign Service spanned 14 years.
Ms. Montgomery holds an M.P.A. in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a B.A. in Political Science and History from Stanford University. She is a recipient of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship, a graduate of MIT’s Seminar XXI program, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms. Montgomery is a non-resident fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, where her work focuses on Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans.
Shelly Mueller
Ms. Mueller has served as a speaker for the U.S. Department of State in Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Washington, D.C., giving lectures and conducting workshops on leadership development for nonprofit organizations. In 2014, Georgetown University Press published the second edition of her book Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development. Ms. Mueller earned her M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Dr. Emile Nakhleh
Dr. Nakhleh is a former Senior Intelligence Service (SIS) Officer (CIA), a former Research Professor and Director, GNSPI (UNM), a Founding Director, Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program (CIA), a Founding Director, Global and National Security Policy Institute (UNM), a Life Member, Council on Foreign Relations, a Consultant on the Middle East, political Islam, radicalization, terrorism, and intelligence. He has published frequently on these issues, been awarded several senior commendations and distinguished medals for his service, and been a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Bahrain and Israel. Dr Nakhleh has been a frequent speaker for the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum.
Dr. Nakhleh is the author of numerous academic books and scholarly articles, was awarded several senior commendations and distinguished medals for his service and was a senior Fulbright Scholar in Bahrain and Israel.
Ambassador (rtd) Larry C Napper
Ambassador (ret) Larry C. Napper is Professor of the Practice Emeritus of International Affairs on the faculty of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, with teaching and research interests in the history and practice of American Diplomacy and Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of the former Soviet Union. Ambassador Napper served in the United States Foreign Service (1974-2004) in numerous diplomatic assignments, including as Director of the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the State Department and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia (1995-98) and Kazakhstan (2001-2004).
Magie Toulouse Oliver
Ms. Toulouse Oliver was first elected as Secretary of State in the November 2016 special election. She was reelected in 2018.
Toulouse Oliver has advocated for elections security, and has ensured that the state of New Mexico employs many election security best practices, including the use of paper ballots and post-election audits. In 2017, she was a founding member of the Elections Government Sector Coordinating Council, which works with the Department of Homeland Security to inform policy on elections as critical national infrastructure. In 2018, she testified as an expert witness before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on elections security and cybersecurity issues.
David O’Sullivan
David O’Sullivan served as Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to the United States from November 2014 until February 2019. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador, he was the Chief Operating Officer of the EU’s new diplomatic service, the “European External Action Service”. He had previously held a number of senior positions within the European Commission including Director General for Trade (2005-2010); Secretary General of the European Commission (2000-2005); and Chief of Staff to Commission President Romano Prodi (1999-2000). Before joining the Commission, he started his career with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (1977-1979). He is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the College of Europe (Bruges), and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Dublin Institute of Technology and Trinity College Dublin. He was awarded the EU Transatlantic Business Award by the American Chamber of Commerce in 2014.
Jerry Pacheco
Experience:
President of Global Perspectives Integrated, a New Mexico-based international trade and project management firm (1996 to the present). A selection of Global Perspectives’ clients includes Cementos de Chihuahua, the Public Service Company of New Mexico, SABRAE (the Brazilian Furniture Association), the U.S. Department of Commerce, World Photo Press, along with a host of smaller companies.
Director of Marketing, Santa Teresa Real Estate Development Corporation (1999 to 2004)
VP of Business Banking (commercial and international banking) of Norwest Bank (1994 to 1996)
Director of the State of New Mexico’s Trade and Tourism Office in Mexico City (1991 to 1994)
North American Trade Specialist, State of New Mexico (1990 to 1991)
Syndicated Columnist: For the past 23 years, Mr. Pacheco has published his “Business Across Borders” column, which appears in the Albuquerque Journal, El Paso Inc. and Ser Empresario Magazine. The column focuses on international trade, economics and cultural issues.
Has testified as an expert witness on the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S.-Mexico trade before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C.
Has taught international management, economics, marketing and public relations classes at the University of New Mexico, the College of Santa Fe and Highlands University.
Past board member and Treasurer of the U.S.-Mexico Border District Export Council. Pacheco is currently the Treasurer for this group, which is appointed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Past member of the Advisory Board of the Inter-American Foundation
Past board member of the El Paso Foreign Trade Association, the North American Institute and Loretto Academy
Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Marketing, an M.B.A. in International Management and a Masters in Latin American studies – all from the University of New Mexico.
Mr. Pacheco is married to Loretta Pacheco and they have a 20-year old son.
Ankit Panda
Ankit Panda is an award-winning American writer, analyst, and researcher specializing in international security, defense, geopolitics, and economics. His work has appeared in a range of publications, including the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Diplomat, the Atlantic, the Daily Beast, Politico Magazine, and War on the Rocks. He is currently a senior editor at the Diplomat, where he writes daily on security, geopolitics, and economics in the Asia-Pacific region and hosts a popular podcast. He is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, where his work focuses on nuclear and conventional force developments in Asia, deterrence, and nuclear strategy.
Panda has additionally published scholarly research in journals including the Washington Quarterly, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and India Review. He is additionally a contributor to the International Institute on Strategic Studies’ Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment and Strategic Survey. Panda is also a consultant for a number of governments, international institutions, and corporations. He is a frequent participant in Track-2 and Track-1.5 dialogues in Asia, Europe, and North America. Panda is a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He lives in New York City and tweets at @nktpnd. His forthcoming book, Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea, published by Hurst Publisher will be available in 2020.
Francisco “Paco” Pérez
Francisco “Paco” Pérez grew up in Belen, New Mexico and is currently the Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He joined the State Department in 2008, following a fellowship with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Capitol Hill. He has served in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Benin, and the Department of State, Operations Center. He and his wife, FSO Stephanie Espinal are members of the Hispanic Employees Council of Foreign Affairs Agencies (HECFAA) and have participated in many recruiting events for future Hispanic Foreign Service Officers. Paco is a graduate of the University of Tampa and has a juris doctor degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law.
Krista Peterson
Krista Peterson received a degree in radio/television/film from Northwestern University in 1993 but it was a presentation by the US Department of State during her college years that led her to join the Foreign Service. She arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras—her first foreign country other than Canada and Mexico—in September 1998 to live and work. Hurricane Mitch devasted Honduras two weeks later, which made for a very interesting two years in the consular section.
After Russian language training she arrived in Ukraine about one month before the terrorist attack in the US on September 11, 2001. Not long after that she consolidated many US agencies spread out across Kyiv and administrative functions housed in shipping containers on the Embassy grounds into two floors of a leased building. She has been an administrative specialist ever since and has worked for several different for profit businesses and nonprofit and educational organizations in Española and Santa Fe.
Iliana Ragnone
Iliana Ragnone (moderator) is a Research Associate for the Korea Program and Producer of 38 North at the Stimson Center. She contributes to 38 North’s satellite imagery portfolio and focuses on security issues.
Robin Raphel
Anthony (Bud) Rock
Anthony (Bud) Rock most recently served as Principal of Global Water 2020, a foundation-based initiative working to ensure adequate access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)for health and security. He continues to advocate for WASH throughout the developing world.
Mr. Rock had a three-decade career in U.S. government service, initially as a physical scientist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), followed by more than two decades in the U.S. Department of State with assignments at home and abroad. He retired as acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for oceans, environment, science, technology, and health.
Following his diplomatic service, Mr. Rock held the position of Vice President for Global Engagement at Arizona State University (ASU). He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), an international organization dedicated to furthering public engagement with science worldwide. Mr. Rock also served as executive publisher of the leading professional publication of the science center field. Mr. Rock is the author and editor of numerous articles and books on science education and science diplomacy. He served in the United States Merchant Marines.
Cheryl Rofer
Ray Rivera
Christine Sauer
Charles Shapiro
Jack Shlachter
Jack Shlachter is a physicist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory for over thirty years with briefer stints at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, the latter two based in Vienna, Austria; he led both the Physics Division and Theoretical Division during his LANL career. In parallel, Jack is an ordained rabbi who led the Jewish congregation in Los Alamos for many years, was the rabbi in Center Moriches, NY, during his years at Brookhaven, and now serves as rabbi of HaMakom, a congregation in Santa Fe, NM as well as the Los Alamos Jewish Center. He has also provided itinerant rabbinic support to far-flung Jewish communities including those in Vienna, Austria, and Beijing, China.
Philip A. Shull
Mr. Philip A. Shull is a consultant, expert witness, author, and speaker on China, international trade, food security, and economic/market development. He retired as a senior U.S. diplomat in 2016 after serving for over 30 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, directing offices in China (including Mongolia), Korea, Argentina (including Uruguay and Paraguay), the Philippines, and Hong Kong/Macao, as well as Washington. His final diplomatic position was Minister Counselor for Agriculture at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, USDA’s largest and most important post.
rsilver
Richard Silver retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2017 after serving in five countries (Romania, Japan, Pakistan, Colombia and India) as a public diplomacy officer. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Japan Society of Northern California; Chair, Japan Team, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; and a Senior Attorney, U.S. Treasury Department.
During his time at Treasury, Richard was detailed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as a white collar crime prosecutor as well as to the Japanese Finance Ministry as a Mike Mansfield Fellow advising on Japan’s Big Bang legal and financial sector reforms. He currently serves on the Santa Fe Council on International Relations Board. His primary foreign language is Japanese although he studied all of the languages in the countries in which he served.
Jim Stent
Ambassador William B Taylor
Ambassador William B. Taylor is vice president, Europe and Russia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. In 2019, he served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv and as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. During the Arab Spring, he oversaw U.S. assistance and support to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. He served in Jerusalem as the U.S. government’s representative to the Mideast Quartet. He served in Kabul in 2002 and in Baghdad in 2004.
In the 1990s, Ambassador Taylor coordinated U.S. assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He earlier served on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley.
Ambassador Taylor is a graduate of West Point and Harvard’s Kennedy School and served as an infantry platoon leader and combat company commander in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and Germany.
Jane Thery
Ms. Thery began her international affairs career as a program officer with the Ford Foundation in Lima, Peru. She has held senior positions with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the University of Maryland, and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1995, she joined the OAS team supporting the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas and had since managed key portfolios in the Summits of the Americas Secretariat and the Secretariat for External Relations. She holds a BA in international relations from Duke University, a MA in international relations/economics from Yale University and is fluent in Spanish.
Jenny Town
Jenny Town is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and the Director of Stimson’s Korea Program and 38 North. Her areas of expertise include North Korea, US-DPRK relations, US-ROK alliance relations and extended deterrence, and Northeast Asia regional security.
Panayotis J. Tsakonas
He has been Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations (Athens, Greece), NATO Research Fellow, post-doctoral Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University and Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Center for European Studies, University of Oxford.
He has worked as Chief International Affairs Analyst for the weekly New Europe (1994-96), as Advisor on defense and strategic issues at the Hellenic Ministry of National Defense (1996-1998) and as Special Advisor at the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs on security issues and on Greek-Turkish relations (1999-2003).
Prof. Tsakonas has published books, monographs and articles on International Relations theory, regional security issues, foreign policy analysis (FPA), Greek foreign and security policy and Greek-Turkish relations. His articles, book reviews and contributions in edited volumes have been published in several European countries, Canada, the United States and New Zealand, and in professional journals, including: Etudes Helléniques, Turkish Studies, Journal of Modern Hellenism, Journal of Southeast Europe and Black Sea Studies, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Welt Trends, Politics: The Journal of the British Political Studies Association, Security Dialogue, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy etc.
His books/monographs include: National Security Strategy. Building the Greek Model for the Twenty-First Century (Papazissis, Athens, 2005, with Th. Dokos -in Greek), Multilateralism and Security Institutions in an Era of Globalization (Routledge, London and New York, 2007, co-editor), European Security Institutions and Interstate Conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean. Parochial, Necessary or Insufficient? (Hellenic Center for European Studies, September 2007, Athens), and The Incomplete Breakthrough in Greek-Turkish Relations. Grasping Greece’s Socialization Strategy (Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2010).
Dan Turk
Dan Turk has spent nearly 30 years working in Madagascar—an island nation off the coast of East Africa – that has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world but also one of the highest levels of poverty. Once covered mostly in forests, Madagascar has few pockets of native trees remaining, one of which is in the Ranomafana National Park where Dan did his doctoral research.
Part of that research resulted in the Ranomafana Arboretum, founded in 2007 to provide educational opportunities for learning about many of Madagascar’s famous and amazing trees as well as fruit trees that can contribute to improving food security. Dan and his Malagasy colleagues propagate native trees of exceptional educational value for planting at schools, churches, and other public places to increase appreciation of Madagascar’s rich biodiversity. Alongside his environmental work, Dan focuses on helping low-income farmers grow fruit trees to get on a path out of poverty.
For the past 26 years as a Mission Co-worker of the Presbyterian Church (USA), he has partnered with the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM). He helped establish the FJKM’s Fruits, Vegetables, and Environmental Education program, which has set up 6 fruit centers and provides internships for university students and training for seminary students, church pastors and members, and farmers who learn to grow and graft fruit trees to improve their food security and income.
During Madagascar’s crises of 2002 and 2009, Dan documented human rights abuses and communicated with the US State Department and international human rights organizations. From these experiences and others, he has a unique perspective on U.S. policy towards Madagascar.
An avid botanist, Dan has named three new species. He has co-authored several academic journal articles and is currently preparing “A Guide to Trees of Ranomafana National Park” for publication. His work has been recognized by colleagues who have named plants after him; he has received the William Gibson Eco-Justice lifetime achievement award in 2006 and the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Madagascar in 2014.
Joëlle Uzarski
Joëlle Uzarski is currently the Public Diplomat in Residence at the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. She joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 2005 following a two-year State Department Senior English Language Fellowship in Uzbekistan. She served overseas at the U.S. embassies in Brazil, Chile, India, Pakistan, and Thailand, where she directed State Department educational and cultural programs in 19 countries. Her most recent assignment was Country Cultural Affairs Officer in Brasilia. Prior to becoming a diplomat, Joëlle trained teachers and taught students in Korea, Brazil, and Spain. She earned her B.A. in Creative Writing and her Master’s in Applied Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is from Chicago.
Mike Vigil
Mike Vigil grew up in Espanola and was an undercover DEA agent in Colombia and Mexico infiltrating Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s drug cartels.
He was the former Chief of International Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, one of the most highly decorated agents within the agency and responsible for numerous multinational operations, the largest involved 36 countries. Vigil was made an honorary General by the government of Afghanistan and given the key to the city of Shanghai by China. He was given an Admiral’s sword by the former president of the Dominican Republic, Hipolito Mejia. He was also responsible for developing global intelligence sharing platforms.
After graduating from New Mexico State University, he joined the DEA academy in Washington, D.C., in 1973 at the age of 22.
For most of his 31 year career, his job was to infiltrate Latin America’s drug cartels, posing as a Mexican drug trafficker. During his time with the agency, Mike Vigil never told his Española family about his dangerous work. But in a 370-page autobiography titled DEAL, he described some of his riskiest missions. In addition to DEAL, he has written Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel, Narco Queen, and The Land of Enchantment Cartel.
In the 1980s, he said that he sat next to Colombia’s drug kingpin Pablo Escobar at soccer games. “The reason I wrote the book is to leave a legacy behind for my family,” Vigil said. “It’s also, secondarily, an education tool for people to see what the drug trade is really all about.”
DEAL starts with an anecdote of an undercover operation in the Mexican state of Sonora in the 1970s, when Vigil went undercover to meet two drug traffickers who worked for Guadalajara cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero. In 1985, Quintero tortured and killed a DEA agent. As Vigil waited to exchange his fake money with the traffickers for three tons of marijuana, a Mexican federal agent with him got impatient, pointed his gun at one of the drug traffickers, blowing Vigil’s cover. “The trafficker shot [the agent] twice in the head, and I remember seeing a spray of blood coming out of his head,” Vigil recalled. The drug trafficker also shot at Vigil twice, but he missed. And so it went throughout his incredible and risky career south of the border.
Jonatan Vseviov
Jonatan Vseviov
Jonatan Vseviov has been serving as Estonia´s Ambassador to the United States since August 2018. This is his third diplomatic posting in Washington, DC. Before assuming his current duties, Vseviov worked at the Estonian Ministry of Defense for 10 years, rising to the post of Permanent Secretary. Until his appointment as Permanent Secretary in January 2016, Mr. Vseviov served as the Undersecretary for Defense Planning, the Acting Undersecretary for Defense Policy, and Director of Policy Planning.
Alex Wellerstein
Alex Wellerstein, is author of Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2021). He is a professor and the Director of the Science and Technology Studies Program at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He received a PhD from the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University in 2010, and has a BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley. Along with his writings in the New Yorker, Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, and other venues, he is best known for creating the NUKEMAP, a popular online nuclear weapons effects simulator.
James L. West
James L West
Dr. James L. West a specialist in Russian society, holds a PhD in prerevolutionary Russian history from Princeton University. He taught at the European University in St Petersburg, Russia from 2015-17, the sole remaining private university in the Russian Federation, closed in 2017 by the Russian government in its drive to eliminate western liberal thought in the country.
He was a professor of history and humanities at Middlebury College (1995-2011), and professor of history at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. (1971-95)
During his academic career, he was the recipient of several prestigious US government grants to conduct and publish research in and on the Soviet Union which resulted in Between Tsar and People (1991) and Merchant Moscow (1991), Princeton University Press and republished in Russia in 2008which he edited.
In addition to Russian history, West has taught courses on the interplay of culture, society, intellectual thought and politics in Russia and Central Europe. He spoke at SFWAF’s first symposium “A Window on Russia” in 2006 and at our 2018 symposium “Values, Myths and Interests: American Foreign Policy in an Unstable World” on “Up Off Our Knees: The Search for a Usable Past for Russia’s Resurgence.” He most recently addressed SFWAF audiences on history of the Ukraine-Russia conflict via web on August 17, 2022.
He most recently spoke on Russia-Ukraine relations for SFWAF in March 2020.
Folkert Geert Wilman
Folkert Wilman, attorney, EU Commission member, EU Legal Service, Brussels and EU Fellowship Program participant. He is responsible for digital single market related matters including e-commerce, geo-blocking, and online platforms; intellectual property enforcement and trade secrets; civil aviation; and EU satellite navigation programs. He has dealt with external aspects of the EU’s common agricultural policy and public health issues. He has advised the European Commission Directorates General on EU law questions, revising and codrafting EU legislation, participating in intra- and inter-institutional decision-making processes. He has represented the European Commission before the European Union Courts in various cases including the collaborative economy (Uber), e-commerce, customs, substantive intellectual property law and social affairs. As a member of the EU Commission’s Legal Service Equal Opportunities Committee he has provided in-house training to new members. His PhD in EU Law is from Leiden University (Netherlands) and his BA and MAs in EU and International Law are from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium.)
Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz
Ambassador Yalowitz was a career Foreign Service Officer from 1966-2001 and served twice as U.S. ambassador: to the Republic of Belarus from 1994-1997; and to Georgia from 1998-2001. Other overseas assignments included Moscow (twice) including in 1991 at the time of the breakup of the USSR, The Hague and the US Mission to NATO in Brussels. In 1984, Ambassador Yalowitz received a State Department superior honor award for crisis management in the shootdown of KAL-007. He was chosen for the Ambassador Robert Frasure award for peacemaking and conflict prevention in 2000 for his work to prevent the spillover of the Chechen war into Georgia. In 2009, he was invited to join the American Academy of Diplomacy whose members are former senior US Ambassadors and high-level government officials and in 2011 he was elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.
Following his retirement in 2001 from the Department of State, Ambassador Yalowitz began teaching graduate courses at Georgetown University dealing with Russia’s conflicts with its South Caucasus neighbors. From 2003-12 he directed the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. During that time, he co-taught courses with faculty members on authoritarianism and democracy in the former USSR and the politics of language in the South Caucasus countries. He then returned to teaching at Georgetown where he was asked to serve as the Director of the Conflict Resolution MA Program from June 30, 2015 to July 1, 2018. Subsequently, he remained an adjunct professor at Georgetown, was the Cyrus Vance Visiting Scholar at Mount Holyoke College in the Spring Term of 2019, and most recently started teaching at Virginia Tech as an adjunct.
His opeds or articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The National Interest, The American Interest, The Hill, Politico, Newsweek, and Moscow Times amongst others and he is frequently interviewed and quoted. Ambassador Yalowitz is from Chicago (DOB May 28, 1941), graduated from the University of Wisconsin and has an MA, MPhil and Russian Institute Certificate from Columbia University. He speaks Russian.
James Zumwalt
Ambassador (rtd) James Zumwalt
Ambassador James Zumwalt became CEO of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA in February 2017. He served for 36 years in the State Department with assignments as United States Ambassador to the Republic of Senegal and the Republic of Guinea Bissau, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Japan and the Korean Peninsula, Deputy Chief of Mission in U.S. Embassy Tokyo, and Director of the State Department Office of Japanese Affairs.
Ambassador Zumwalt received a master’s degree in International Security Studies from the National War College in 1998 and a BA in American History and Japanese Language from UC Berkeley in 1979. He speaks Japanese and French. He is married to Ann Kambara.
