Dr. Qu Xing is currently president of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS). Since 1985, he has taught at China Foreign Affairs University, serving consecutively as director of the Teaching and Research Section of China’s Foreign Relations under the Department of Diplomacy, deputy dean of the Department of Diplomacy, assistant to the president of the University and vice president of the University. He was also a professor and doctoral supervisor therein. From January 2006 to August 2009, he served as minister at the Chinese Embassy in France.
Russia
Dr. Roald Sagdeev
National Security Expert
Dr. Roald Sagdeev
National Security Expert
Russia
Dr. Roald Sagdeev is a professor in the physics department at the University of Maryland and is a non-resident fellow at the Eisenhower Institute, a foreign policy think tank focused on Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He previously served for fifteen years as director of the Space Research Institute, the Moscow-based center of the Russian space exploration program, where he currently holds the title of director emeritus. Prior to his work with the Soviet space exploration program, he had a distinguished career in nuclear science with international recognition for his work on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion.
In addition to his decorated career as a physicist, Sagdeev held the position of people’s deputy in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and served as advisor to Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze at summits in Geneva, Washington and Moscow. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Max Planck Society and the International Academy of Aeronautics.
United States
Mr. Jonathan Schell
National Security Expert
Mr. Jonathan Schell
National Security Expert
United States
Jonathan Schell was the Doris Shaffer Fellow at the Nation Institute, the peace and disarmament correspondent for The Nation magazine and taught a course on the nuclear age at Yale University. He began his career at The New Yorker magazine, where he was a staff writer from 1967 until 1987. During those years he was the principal writer of the magazine’s Notes and Comments and also wrote long pieces, many of which were published as books. His reflective work on the nuclear question “The Fate of the Earth” (Knopf, 1982), which first appeared in three parts in The New Yorker, became a best-seller and was hailed by the New York Times as “an event of profound historical moment.” He appeared often on radio and television including the Lehrer News Hour, the Charlie Rose Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews. Schell passed away on March 25, 2014.
China
Dr. Shen Dingli
National Security Expert
Dr. Shen Dingli
National Security Expert
China
Dr. Shen Dingli is a professor of international relations and vice dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai. He is the founder and director of the Program on Arms Control and Regional Security at Fudan University, China’s first non-government based program on the subject. His research focuses on the relationship between China and the United States, nuclear arms control and disarmament and regional nonproliferation issues concerning South Asia.
Shen organizes dozens of international conferences, including The Shanghai Dialogue, which is widely known as one of the most important multilateral, track-two talks on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the International Institute of Security Studies and serves as a consultant to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce. In 2002, Shen was invited to advise then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the strategy for his second term.
United States
Dr. Martin J. Sherwin
National Security Expert
Dr. Martin J. Sherwin
National Security Expert
United States
Dr. Martin J. Sherwin was a professor at George Mason University and senior scholar at the Wilson Center, where he conducted research on the history of the nuclear arms race. Prior to joining GMU, he was a professor of english and American history at Tufts University, where he was on faculty for 27 years. In 2006, he released his book (with Kai Bird), “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography of the year. Sherwin held appointments on the faculties of Yale University, Wellesley College, UC-Berkeley, Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell Universities. In recognition for his work and teaching, Sherwin was appointed Honorable UNESCO Professor of Humanities at Meneleyev University in Moscow in 1994. He also served as an advisor for many documentaries on the history of the nuclear age, including “Countdown to Zero.”
Sherwin passed away in October 2021.
Canada
Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, C.M.
National Security Expert
Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, C.M.
National Security Expert
Canada
Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, C.M. is founding partner and Canada chair of Global Zero and founder and president of The Simons Foundation, Vancouver, Canada, with a mission to advance positive change through education in peace, nuclear disarmament, international law and human security.
As an award-winning educator, thought leader and policy advisor, Simons and her foundation have supported major international initiatives, providing critical financial support, convening international leaders in policy dialogue and driving academic research. Her partnerships with other non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, the Government of Canada, international governments and the United Nations have made her an important and effective actor in the effort to address peace and disarmament. She is a member of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the International Advisory Board of the Center for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament of Australian National University.
Simons was appointed to the Order of Canada for her contributions to the promotion of peace and disarmament and, among her many other awards and acknowledgements, was awarded both the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 for her service to the global effort to eradicate landmines and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. She also received the 2006 Vancouver Citizens Peace Award.
Click here for more information and a complete biography.
Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the president and CEO of New America. She was the director of the International Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School from 1994 to 2002, and the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University from 2002 to 2009. Slaughter was the first woman ever to be the director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, serving under the Obama administration beginning in 2009. In this position, Slaughter was the chief architect of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and received the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award for her work.
Spain
Dr. Javier Solana
National Security Expert
Dr. Javier Solana
National Security Expert
Spain
Dr. Javier Solana was the secretary-general of NATO and the first high representative for common foreign and security policy of the European Union. He also served as the secretary-general of both the Council of the European Union and the Western European Union (WEU). Previously, Solana served as a member of parliament, minister for culture, minister for education and science and minister for foreign affairs in the Spanish government. His extensive diplomatic career has been praised both for his ability to facilitate cooperation between members of NATO and for his successes as the European Union’s foremost voice in matters of foreign affairs. Solana is the recipient of several major awards for his diplomatic career, among which are the Carnegie-Wateler Peace Prize and the Charlemagne Prize. He is currently a distinguished fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.
