Rodrigo Álvarez Valdés is coordinator of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament of Nuclear Weapons Project and executive manager of the Global Consortium on Security Transformation, both at the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLASCO) in Chile. He is the author of the book, Nuclear Arms: The Uncertainty of Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He has also written three working papers that are published online: “Toward Global Zero: Fiction or Truth?,” “The Chinese Nuclear Arsenal,” and “The Uncertainty of Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.” Alvarez holds a master's degree in international political economy from the University of Tsukuba in Japan. He is currently completing a master's degree in international studies at the University of Chile and is concurrently finishing his PhD at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Natasha Barnes is a graduate student in the Political Science Program in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She is writing her dissertation on the dynamics of nuclear disarmament, under the supervision of Tanya Ogilvie-White. Barnes is involved in the Young Leaders Program of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies and has contributed to the “Asia Pacific Handbook and Action Plan to Prevent WMD Proliferation,” which is currently being compiled by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.
Marianne Hanson is associate professor of international relations and foundation director of the Rotary Centre for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland, Australia. She received an M.Phil. and D.Phil. in international relations from Oxford University. Her research focuses on international security, especially the role of law and multilateral organizations in nuclear arms control. She is on the Australian Member Committee for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Her recent publications include “North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program: From Regional Instability to Denuclearisation?” (a report prepared for the Danish Institute of International Studies in 2008) and “Nuclear Weapons in the Asia-Pacific: A Critical Security Appraisal,” in Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific (2007, Manchester University Press).
Wade L. Huntley is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and an independent consultant on international security issues. His areas of specialization include nuclear weapons proliferation, security and arms control in space, U.S. foreign policy, East and South Asian regional security, and international relations theory. His publications include four edited books and more than fifty peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scholarly essays. He received his doctorate in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and has held research and teaching positions at several universities and institutes in Japan, Canada, and the United States. He is currently researching a book on the evolution of the norms and principles of the nonproliferation regime.
Jacques E.C. Hymans is assistant professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. His book The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (2006, Cambridge University Press) received the Edgar S. Furniss Book Award for best first book in national and international security, and the Alexander L. George Book Award for best book in political psychology. Recently he has also published articles on nuclear weapons topics in the Journal of Strategic Studies and Journal of East Asian Studies.
Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. He has written extensively on the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons products and is principal editor of Nuclear Wastelands, which was nominated by MIT Press, its publisher, for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995. His work has appeared in many publications, including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Progressive, and the Washington Post, and he has appeared on numerous broadcast news shows. He earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in nuclear fusion in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.
Tanya Ogilvie-White is a senior lecturer in international relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research and teaching both focus on nonproliferation and counterterrorism. Recent publications include: “Nuclear Capabilities in Southeast Asia: Building a Preventive Proliferation Firewall” (with Michael S. Malley), Nonproliferation Review (March 2009); “Facilitating Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1540 in the Asia-Pacific,” in Lawrence Scheinman, ed., Implementing Resolution 1540: The Role of Regional Organizations (2008); “North Korean Security Dynamics: A Symposium,” special section editor, Asian Security (2007); and “International Responses to Iranian Nuclear Defiance: The Non-Proliferation Diplomacy of the Non-Nuclear Weapons States,” European Journal of International Law. In 2007, she won the Michael Leifer Memorial Prize for her article, “Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism Cooperation in Southeast Asia: Meeting Global Obligations through Regional Security Architectures.”
Benoît Pélopidas is a visiting fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. He is a final year PhD candidate in political science at Sciences Po (Paris) and at the University of Geneva; his dissertation focuses on the conditions of nuclear renunciation. He is the coauthor, with Didier Chaudet and Florent Parmentier, of When Empire Meets Nationalism: Power Politics in the US and Russia (2009, Aldershot, Ashgate).
Maria Rost Rublee is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, specializing in international security, international relations theory, and political psychology. She is author of Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (2009) and has published in journals ranging from Comparative Political Studies to International Studies Review. Her current projects include an investigation into the impact of norm entrepreneurs on state nuclear policy, particularly in democracies, as well as an analysis of how peace organizations in Japan influence nuclear policy. Rublee's next book project examines the use of norms as policy tools, investigating the novel ways that diplomats, policy experts, and nongovernmental organizations have used normative influence as a way to reduce proliferation and encourage disarmament.
David Santoro is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Research, Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia. A research affiliate at the Paris-based Center for International Security and Arms Control Studies and at the Center for Transatlantic Studies, Santoro regularly participates in track-2 diplomatic dialogues in the Asia-Pacific region through his involvement with the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies “Young Leaders Program.” His research interests center on nuclear issues against the backdrop of great power relations. Santoro is author of Treating Weapons Proliferation: An Oncological Approach to the Spread of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Technology (2010, Palgrave Macmillan) and will be a visiting fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University from March to June 2010.
Daniel Wirls is professor and chair of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is author of Buildup: The Politics of Defense in the Reagan Era and coauthor of The Invention of the United States Senate. His most recent book, Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama will be published later this year by Johns Hopkins University Press.