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. During 2012-2015, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Spain’s only former colony in sub-Saharan Africa. Mark is fluent in Spanish and has a working knowledge of French, Russian, Romanian and Italian.
In the Spring of 2016, the U.S. Department of State asked him to return temporarily to government service. Mark spent ten weeks as the Acting Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius. In recent years he’s accepted short-term assignments with State’s Office of Inspector General.
Prior to entering the Foreign Service, Mark was the Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain (1975-76). He earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University, where he also received his undergraduate degree.
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.
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.
A native of Silver City, NM and former private practice attorney along with his wife Anne Kovacovich, Bingaman was Attorney General of New Mexico from 1979 to 1983 focusing on environmental and antitrust issues. He has worked consistently to protect wildlife and public lands. He championed the Clean Energy Act of 2007 and its importance in developing clean technology and green jobs and supported the bill’s principle of eliminating tax breaks on gas and oil companies. He continues to support a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via “cap and trade” and also to increase federal funds for R&D in green technologies. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford University Law School. The Bingamans have one son.
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.
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.
Deborah Cornelius
Stephen Creskoff
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 Lange 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. Prior to this, 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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
