ACONA Bootcamp Speakers
The ACONA program includes speakers who are experts in the fields of history, regional studies, international politics, national security and nuclear diplomacy. We invite both scholars and high-level practitioners to give lectures and participate in discussions with our Fellows. Below you can find a list of past speakers at both our bootcamps and our inaugural ACONA Conference, held in May, 2022.
Ray Acheson
Director of Reaching Critical Will at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Nobumasa Akiyama
Professor of International Relations, School of International and Public Policy and the Graduate School of Law at Hitotsubashi University
William Alberque
Director of the Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control Programme,
International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin
Anatoly I. Antonov
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States
Alexey Arbatov
Head of the Center for International Security, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations
Thóra Arnórsdóttir
Managing editor, Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RÚV)
Catherine Ashton
Former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Eileen Babbitt
Professor, Practice of International Conflict Management, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Co-Director, Program on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Faculty Associate, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School
Andrey Baklitskiy
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the Institute of International Studies, MGIMO University
Andrey Baykov
Associate Professor, Department of Applied International Analysis, MGIMO University
Arvid Bell
Lecturer on Government at Harvard University; Director of the Negotiation Task Force (NTF) at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Alexander Bollfrass
Senior Researcher, Center for Security Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Associate, Negotiation Task Force, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Mariana Budjeryn
Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) and the International Security Program (ISP) at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center
Matthew Bunn
Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government
Susan Corke
Senior Fellow and Director of the bipartisan Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (TDWG) with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF)
Thomas Countryman
Chair, Arms Control Association Board of Directors
Former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Tarja Cronberg
Distinguished Associate Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Former Member of European Parliament
Christopher Daase
Professor for International Organization at the University of Frankfurt; Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
Abdolrasool Divsallar
Co-leader of the Regional Security Initiative at the Middle East Directions Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies; Policy Leader Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute
Jóna Sólveig Elínardóttir
Director of the Hybrid Threats Department, Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Andrew Futter
Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester
Member, Cyber-Nuclear Security Threats Task Force, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Nancy Gallagher
Director, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM); Research Professor, University of Maryland's School of Public Policy
Rebecca Gibbons
Assistant Professor, University of Southern Maine
Francesca Giovannini
Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs
Rose Gottemoeller
Former Deputy Secretary General of NATO; Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas Graham, Jr.
Former U.S. Special Representative for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation, and Disarmament
Acting Director and Acting Deputy Director, U.S Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Hugh Gusterson
Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, George Washington University
Melissa Hanham
Deputy Director, Open Nuclear Network
Pia Hansson
Director, Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland
Emily J. Holland
Assistant Professor, Russia Maritime Studies Institute at the United States Naval War College
Visiting Scholar, NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
Renata Hessmann Dalaqua
Head of Gender and Disarmament Program, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
Vincent J. Intondi
Former Director of Research for American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute
Igor Istomin
Associate Professor, Department of Applied International Political Analysis, MGIMO University; Davis Senior Scholar, Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Moriba Jah
Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Texas
Former Spacecraft Navigator, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Katrín Jakobsdóttir
Prime Minister of Iceland
Tinatin Japaridze
Director of Policy and Strategy, The Critical Mass
Togzhan Kassenova
Nonresident Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Laura Kennedy
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan
Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Former U.S. Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and Special Representative for Biological Weapons Convention Issues
Soo Kim
Policy Analyst, Rand Corporation
Adjunct Instructor, American University
Daryl G. Kimball
Executive Director, Arms Control Association
Alexander Kmentt
Ambassador and Director of Disarmament, Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Former Permanent Representative of Austria to the Political and Security Committee of the European Union
Matt Kokkinos
Coordinator, Negotiation Task Force
Alexander Kolbin
Consultant, PIR Center
Robert Litwak
Senior Vice President and Director of International Security Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Former Director for Non-Proliferation, National Security Council
Rosa Magnusdottir
Associate Professor of History, Aarhus University
Jeffrey Mankoff
Senior Associate, CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program
Thilo Marauhn
Professor for Public Law and International Law, Justus Liebig University Giessen
Adlan Margoev
Analyst, Institute for International Studies, MGIMO University
Rose McDermott
David and Mariana Fisher University Professor of International Relations, Brown University
Steven Miller
Director of the International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard University Kennedy School
Izumi Nakamitsu
Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations
Nomsa Ndongwe
Research Associate, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Michiru Nishida
Professor, Nagasaki University
Former Special Advisor for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Jon Gunnar Olafsson
Former Acting Director of the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland
Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir
Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Iceland
Christian F. Ostermann
Director of the History and Public Policy Program (HAPP), Woodrow Wilson Center
Pavel Palazhchenko
Head of the International Relations and PR Department at the Gorbachev Foundation
Steven Pifer
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, and Center on the United States and Europe, Brookings Institution
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Joseph Pilat
Senior Advisor in the National Security Office, Office of the Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
William Potter
Professor, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey; Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Giordana Pulcini
Fellow at the University of Roma Tre
Laura Rockwood
Director, Open Nuclear Network
Mahsa Rouhi
Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University
Lynn Rusten
Vice President of the Global Nuclear Policy Program, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Olamide Samuel
Track II diplomat and researcher in arms control
Former Coordinator of SCRAP Weapons 2019-2021
Svetlana Savranskaya
Director of Russia Programs, George Washington University's National Security Archive
Dmitry Stefanovich
Research Fellow, Center for Internstional Security, Russian Academy of Sciences
Danny Stoian
Fellow, Negotiation Task Force
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Jacob Stokes
Fellow for the Indo-Pacific Security Program, Center for a New American Security
Lev M. Sokolshchik
Postdoctoral Researcher, Higher School of Economic
Dmitry V. Suslov
Deputy Director, Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University – High School of Economics
Adnan Tabatabai
Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO)
Moshik Temkin
Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Chair in Leadership and History at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
Jenny Town
Senior Fellow, Stimson Center
Ali Vaez
Iran Project Director & Advisor to the President, Crisis Group
Michael Waller
President of Georgetown Research; Vice President for Government Relations at the Center for Security Policy
Marc Weller
Chair of International Law and International Constitutional Studies, University of Cambridge
Former United Nations Senior Mediation Expert
Elayne Whyte Gomez
Former Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations
James Wilson
Researcher, US Department of State Office of the Historian
Amy Woolf
Nuclear Weapons Policy Specialist, Congressional Research Research Service at the Library of Congress
Tong Zhao
Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Katarzyna Zysk
Professor, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies

Baroness Catherine Ashton, former EU High Rep. for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy & Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland, speak at the ACONA Conference 2022.

Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, addressing ACONA Fellows (virtually) in January, 2021.