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.