Mr. Victor Zhikai Gao

National Security Expert

China

Victor Zhikai Gao is vice president of the Center for China and Globalization and the chairman of the China Security Institute. Previously, he served as executive director of Beijing Private Equity Association. Earlier in his career, he served as longtime interpreter for Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders and has previously worked with the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

In 1999 and 2000, he was the China policy advisor with the Hong Kong Securities and Future Commission. He has extensive experience in investment banking and corporate management, and has held positions with Morgan Stanley, Henderson Land and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). Gao is a regular contributor to national and international news outlets and publications and is considered an expert on Chinese culture, society and international relations.

Dr. Timothy Garton Ash

National Security Expert

United Kingdom

Dr. Timothy Garton Ash is a professor of European studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. From 1986 to 1987, Garton Ash was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He also previously worked as a foreign editor of The Spectator, an editorial writer on Central European affairs for The London Times and a columnist on foreign affairs for The Independent. Garton Ash is the author of eight books of political writing, the recipient of numerous awards, and has been classified by TIME Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Dr. Bates Gill

National Security Expert

United States

Dr. Bates Gill is currently a professor affiliated with the Department of Security Studies at Macquarie University and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at Australian National University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Prior to that, he was the the chief executive officer of the U.S. Studies Centre and the University of Sydney from 2012 to 2015. Gill was also director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and has a long record of research and publication on international and regional security issues, particularly regarding arms control, nonproliferation, peacekeeping and military-technical development.

Before joining SIPRI, Gill held the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as a senior fellow in foreign policy studies and director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. He has also directed East Asia program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute and at SIPRI.

Prof. Stanley Hoffmann

National Security Expert

France

Professor Stanley Hoffmann was the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University, where his work encompassed international relations, French political history, European history and politics and American foreign policy. He taught at Harvard starting in 1955 and served as the co-founder and chairman of Harvard’s Center for European Studies from 1969 to 1995. Hoffman earned his degree from the Institut d’études Politique of Paris. In addition to his highly esteemed and decorated academic career, he was a frequent intellectual commentator, contributing articles to periodicals such as Foreign Policy, The New York Review of Books and The New York Times. Hoffman passed away on September 13, 2015.

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy

National Security Expert

Pakistan

Dr. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is the distinguished professor of physics and mathematics at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan. He previously served as the chairman and professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, where he taught for over 34 years. He has a doctorate in nuclear physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the recipient of several prizes for his contributions to mathematics, electronics, science and education. He is visiting professor at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Maryland and Stanford University, and often lectures at U.S. and European universities and research laboratories. Hoodbhoy is author of “Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality,” and chairs Mashal Books, a non-profit organization that publishes books in Urdu on social, philosophical and scientific issues. He is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.

Mr. Takahiko Ito

National Security Expert

Japan

Currently an adviser of Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc., president of the Japan Chapter of the Institute of Nuclear Material Management, president of Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization and director of Energy Strategist Consultancy Limited, Takahiko Ito has extensive experience in the energy field. He served three years as the commissioner of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission. After graduating from the University of Tokyo with a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering, Ito worked for many years at Chubu Electric Power Co, Inc., first managing nuclear power stations and later as executive vice president. He recently served as chairman of both the Nuclear Development Steering Committee and the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan.

Mr. Matake Kamiya

National Security Expert

Japan

Matake Kamiya is professor of international relations at the National Defense Academy of Japan and an adjunct research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Japan Association for International Security and a member of the board of trustees of the Japan Association of International Relations. Kamiya has published extensively on international relations, international security, Japan’s postwar pacifism, U.S.-Japan security relations and nuclear topics, including Japan’s non-nuclear policy. His English-language publications include “Realistic Proactivism: Japanese Attitudes toward Global Zero,” chapters in edited volumes and articles in The Washington Quarterly and Arms Control Today among others.

Prof. Dr. Mustafa Kibaroglu

National Security Expert

Turkey

Professor Dr. Mustafa Kibaroglu is dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences and director of MEF Strategy at the Center for International Security Studies and Strategic Research at MEF University in Istanbul. Prior to his appointment, Kibaroglu taught courses on arms control and disarmament in the department of international relations of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. From 2004 to 2005, he was a joint research fellow at the Harvard University Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom.

Kibaroglu has also held fellowships at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He is a member of the Council of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.