Below a list of plenary speakers and biographies of speakers & panelists.  For a comprehensive schedule of events on April 30+May 1, please see the Conference Schedule page.

Plenary speakers

Friday 6:00 PM Plenary Session:

• Terumi Tanaka – Testimony  and Call for Abolition
• Nadine Padilla – The Deadly Impact Of and Resistance To Uranium Mining
• Ibrahim Ramey – Martin Luther King’s Dream and Ours
• Zia Mian - Confronting the Challenges of Nuclear Weapons, Capitalism and Climate Change.
• John Burroughs – Dangers and Opportunities: Nuclear Weapons and the NPT Review
• Natalia Mironova – Complex Challenges of our Nuclear Legacy
• Tomas Magnusson – Vision of a Nuclear Free World

Saturday 1:30 PM Plenary Session:

• International Movement Voices: Challenges and Strategies
• Performance: The Recipe
• Maryam Shansab (Afghanistan)
• J.N. Rao (India)
• Pierre Villard (France)
• Issam Makhoul (Israel)
• Kevin Martin (US)
• Yeon-shik Pyon (Korea)
• (Others to be announced)

Saturday, 7:00 PM Plenary Session:

• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
• Socorro Gomes—President World Peace Council and of CeBraPaz  “Threats to Peace and the NPT Review”
• Mayor Akiba  – Mayor of Hiroshima “Beyond Nuclear Weapons;  A Call to Conscience”

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Biographies of Speakers & Panelists

Ban Ki-moon (Plenary speaker) has served as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations since 2007. At the time of his election as Secretary-General, Mr. Ban was his country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. His long tenure with the Ministry included postings in New Delhi, Washington D.C. and Vienna, and responsibility for a variety of portfolios, including foreign policy adviser to the president, chief national security adviser to the president, deputy minister for policy planning and director-general of American Affairs. Throughout this service, his guiding vision was that of a peaceful Korean peninsula, playing an expanding role for peace and prosperity in the region and the wider world. In September 2005, as Foreign Minister, he played a leading role in bringing about another landmark agreement aimed at promoting peace and stability on the Korean peninsula with the adoption at the six-party talks of the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.

Ray Acheson (Workshop: Dismantling Discourses: Nuclear Weapons & Human Security), a Canadian, is project director of Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, based in New York City.  He and Jacqueline Cabasso are co-authors of a chapter  with a title of this workshop in a forthcoming new book, edited by Acheson, Beyond Arms Control: Challenges and Choices for Nuclear Disarmament available at www.reachingcriticalwill.org.

Rob Acheson (Workshop: Disarmament Through Governmental Infrastructures…) is co-chair, Toronto Chapter, Canadian Department of Peace Initiative.  robach@rogers.com

Gemma Addaba (Workshop: Dismantling Discourses: Nuclear Weapons & Human Security) is the United Nations Representative of the International Trade Union Confederation, which represents 170 million workers in 312 affiliated national organizations from 157 countries.

Rabindra Adhikan (Workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism) is a Peace Council leader and member of Parliament in Nepal.

Jason Ahmadi (Workshop: Weaving Stories) is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and has been a part of the Think Outside the Bomb network since 2007.  He is passionate about reforms to public education and would like to see quality education be a right and not a privilege as well as stopping the trend of privatization and militarization of public education in this country.

Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima, Japan, (Plenary speaker)is one of the most widely known and respected leaders in the global movement to eliminate nuclear weapons. Born in Tokyo, Mayor Akiba is the first non-native to be elected mayor of Hiroshima. It is a testimony to his long record of opposition to nuclear weapons that the survivors of the historic bombing have embraced him as a spokesperson for their fervent plea: “No one else should ever suffer as we did.”  Mayor Akiba lived for many years in the United States.  As a foreign exchange student he graduated from Elmwood Park High School in Illinois.  He did his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1970.  He subsequently taught mathematics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Tufts University in Massachusetts, returning to Japan in 1986. He was elected to the Japanese Diet (House of Representatives) in 1990 and served until 1999.  He assumed office as mayor of Hiroshima in February 1999, and was reelected in 2003 and 2007.  In 2005 he received an Honorary Doctorate from Tufts University.  As mayor of Hiroshima, Mayor Akiba serves as the President of Mayors for Peace, a dynamic and rapidly growing international network working for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.  Mayor Akiba and Mayors for Peace received the 2004 “World Citizenship Award” from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; the 2006 “Sean McBride Peace Award” from the Nobel Prize-winning International Peace Bureau; the first Calgary Peace Prize (2006), in Canada; and the 2007 “Nuclear-Free Future Award” from the Franz-Moll Foundation.

Kozue Akibayashi (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) is an international vice president of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an associate professor at the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, and has worked with Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence since 1996.  akibaya@ir.ritsumei.ac.jp.

Peter Becker (Workshop:  How to Prohibit & Eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction) is president of IALANA Germany and Vice-President of IALANA International.

Phyllis Bennis (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East) is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has written widely on Middle East and UN-related issues and her books include:  Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power, and the just-released Ending the US War in Afghanistan: a Primer.

Katharina Bergmann (Workshop: Youth Lobbying and Messaging), from Germany, is a medical student and is coordinating the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) student campaign “Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project”.  inabergmann@gmail.com

Reiner Braun (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S. & Nonviolent Resistance; Debunking Nuclear Deterrence) is the Program Director for the International Network of Engineers & Scientists for Global Responsibility(INES) and lives in Germany.

John Burroughs (Plenary speaker) is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the UN office of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. He is co-editor and contributor of Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace (2007); and author of The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (1998).

Jacqueline Cabasso (Workshops: Dismantling Discourses: Nuclear Weapons & Human Security) is  executive director of Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, California, a founding mother and coordinating committee member of Abolition 2000, a steering committee member of United for Peace and Justice, and North American Coordinator of Mayors for Peace.

John Chappell (Workshop: A – bombings &  Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians) is an Associate Professor of History at Webster University, with an area of concentration in 20th Century U.S. History, and the author of Before the Bomb: How America Approached the End of World War II.

Michel Cibot is city manager of Malakoff;  Alain Audoubert, Mayor of Vitry-sur-Seine; and Franck Demaumont, Mayor of Chalett-sur-Loing (Workshop: The Role of Cities).  These French cities are actively engaged in programs to promote a culture of peace.

Lisa Clark (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S. & Nonviolent Resistance), lives in Italy and is an activist in the Italian peace movement.

Jack Cohen-Joppa (Workshop: Towards a Ban on DU Weapons) Jack and his wife and co-editor Felice edit and publish the comprehensive chronicle of anti-nuclear and anti-war civil resistance and peace prisoner support from their home in Tucson, Arizona, where DU-firing A-10 aircraft train overhead daily. nukeresister@igc.org

Jay Coghlan (Workshop: Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex) is the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico that watchdogs the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Over the past 20 years he has led successful efforts against radioactive waste incineration and violations of the Clean Air, Freedom of Information and National Environmental Policy Acts; and in prompting Congress to require a study that resulted in the critical finding that plutonium pit “triggers” last a century or more. jay@nukewatch.org

Susan Crane (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S. & Nonviolent Resistance) is with Plowshare, USA

Anne Creter (Workshop: Disarmament Through Governmental Infrastructures…) is United Nations Liaison to the Global Alliance and former New Jersey state co-coordinator of the U.S. Department of Peace campaign.  annecrets@aol.com

Rubens Diniz (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) is with CEBRAPAZ–Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade aos Povos e Luta pela Paz.  cebrapaz@uol.com.br

Alicia Dressman (Workshop: Weaving Stories) is a freelance researcher working for PeaceWorks KC and PSR-Greater Kansas City Chapter.  She blogs about the Nuclear Weapons Complex, with a focus on the NNSA’s Kansas City Plant.

Nina Eisenhardt (Workshop: Youth Lobbying and Messaging), from Germany, is working on disarmament education and coordinating the European Youth Network “Ban All Nukes generation” since 2005. contact@bang-europe.org

Luis Gutiérrez Esparza (Workshop: No to NATO), Círculo Latinoamericano de Estudios Internacionales (CLAEI), Mexico

Cathey E. Falvo, (Workshop: Why & How to Build a Carbon-Free…) MD, MPH , is with Physicians for Social Responsibility and a pediatrician and public health physician with a long term concern about the short and long term effects on health of various forms of energy.  cathey.falvo@gmail.com

John Feffer (Workshop: Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism…) is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous books and articles on international affairs.

Hiroyuki Fujita (Workshop: Role of Cities) is Chairman of the Hiroshima City Council.

Katsumi Furitsu (Workshop: Toward a Ban of DU Weapons) is a member of the steering committee of ICBUW (International Committee to Ban Uranium Weapons) based in Osaka, Japan, and, as a medical doctor and geneticist, also an active member of the Science Team of ICBUW. f-katsumi@titan.ocn.ne.jp

Bruce Gagnon (Workshop: Missile Defense Deployments Impact Hopes for Nuclear Disarmament) is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and has been working on space issues for the past 28 years.  He is a member of Veterans for Peace and was trained as an organizer by the United Farm Workers Union.  Bruce lives in Bath, Maine where the Navy builds Aegis destroyers which are being outfitted with “missile defense” systems and are being used to surround China.

Ursula Gelis (Workshop: Nuke Powers is THE Way to Nuclear Weapons) is active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Oslo, Norway branch and participated in the Aldermaston Blockade in England and the anti-NATO demonstration in Strasbourg, Germany.

Joseph Gerson (Workshops: Afghanistan & Central Asian War; Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism) is disarmament coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee and director of programs for AFSC in New England. He works closely with Asian, European and other international peace and justice movements. His most recent book is Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World. jgerson@afsc.org

Socorro Gomes (Plenary speaker; Workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism) is president of the World Peace Council, President of the Brazilian Peace Council (CeBraPaz) and a former member of Parliament.

Robert Green (Workshop: Debunking Nuclear Deterrence), the first ex-British navy commander with nuclear weapons experience to come out against them, is author of Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, which will be launched in the UN Bookshop on May 5.

Pallab Sen Gupta (Workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism) is General Secretary of the All-India Peace and Solidarity Association (AIPSO)

Jim Haber (Workshop: The Nuclear Cycle) is the coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience (NDE), based in Las Vegas which organizes interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons and war, and he has been on the War Resisters League National Committee since 2002.

Nazer Habib (Workshop: Nuclear-Free Zone in the Middle East) is a peace and social justice activist campaigning for peace and progress in Iran and the convener of the North American chapter of CODIR (Committee for the Defense of the Iranian People’s Rights).  codir.canada@gmail.com

Margaret Harrington (Workshop: Nuke Power is THE Way to Nuclear Weapons) Nuclear Disarmament Day observed on August 6 seeks a change of heart in the U.S. and the world: As co-chair of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Disarm! Dismantle the War Economy Team, Margaret Harrington is active in Vermont where peace activists and Vermont legislators face down the monstrous nuclear weapons/nuclear power industry.

Oh Hye-Ran (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) works for Solidarity for Peace And Reunification in Korea/SPARK and is Director of the Peace and Disarmament Team.  spark5@hanmail.net

Raed Jarrar (Workshops: Iraq War and Occupation; Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) is an Iraq-born Architect, blogger, and political advocate. Mr. Jarrar lived and worked in Iraq in all through the 90s and during the 2003 invasion. Since immigrating to the US in 2005, he has been working on a number of projects aimed at ending the occupation.  Raed Jarrar is the Iraq Consultant with the American Friends Service Committee, and a senior fellow with Peace Action based in Washington , DC. Jarrar.Raed@gmail.com

Rebecca Johnson (Workshop: Debunking Nuclear Deterrence) is executive director and co-founder of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and is the author of Unfinished Business: The Negotiation of the CTBT and the End of Nuclear Testing.

Kyle Kajihiro (Workshops: Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism; Winning the Withdrawl of Foreign Military Bases) is the program director for the Hawai’i Area Office of the American Friends Service Committee. His work on demilitarization supports local campaigns (stop the bombing of Makua valley) and facilitates solidarity through initiatives such as the DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina network and the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases.  kkajihiro@afsc.org

Kevin Kamps (Workshop: Nuke Power is THE Way to Nuclear Weapons) serves as Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear in Takoma Park, Maryland, which aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future, while advocating for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.

Victor Kamyshanov (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S. & Nonviolent Resistance) is with International Federation for Peace and Conciliation, Russia.

Akira Kawasaki (Workshops: Northeast Asian Arms Race; Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism) is an executive committee member of Peace Boat in Japan and an NGO Advisor to the Co-Chairs of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND).

Tadaaki Kawata (Workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism) is a leader of the Japan Peace Committee.

Junko Kayashige (Workshop: Global Hibakusha) is an A-bomb sufferer from Hiroshima.

Marylia Kelley (Workshop: Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex) is executive director of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) that watchdogs the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. She has 26 years of experience in research, writing, and facilitating public participation in decisions regarding the Department of Energy weapons complex, the Livermore Lab, nuclear weapons, hazardous and radioactive wastes, and cleanup. marylia@earthlink.net

Kim Yong Kil (Workshop: Global Hibakusha) is president of the Korean Atomic Bomb Casualty Association, ROK.  The Korean Hibakusha are dual victims, from the A-bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and from Japan’s aggression and annexation of Korea prior and during WWII.  He will tell of their suffering both in the past and present.

David Krieger (Workshop: Debunking Nuclear Deterrence) is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and author of many books on nuclear abolition, including The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (2009).

Marion Kuepker (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S. & Nonviolent Resistance) is the international coordinator for the German Peace Society of War Resisters (DFG-VK) on nuclear- and uranium weapons and coordinator for the non-violent action group for the abolition of nuclear weapons (GAAA).  GAAA organizes the civil disobedience protests around the German army base Buechel, where about 20 US- nukes are deployed under the NATO sharing agreement.

John LaForge (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S & Non-violent Resistence, Towards a Ban of DU Weapons) is co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental action group based in Wisconsin, and editor of the Nukewatch Quarterly.

Dominique Lalanne (Workshop: Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex) is a nuclear physicist and an expert on nuclear disarmament and the links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. He is the chair of Abolition 2000 Europe and co-chair of Armes Nucléaires STOP-France and has contributed to many deliberations of the European Parliament against nuclear weapons, most recently in support of the Nuclear Weapons Convention.   do.lalanne@wanadoo.fr

Judith LeBlanc (Workshops: Beyond the NPT, Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East) is field organizer for Peace Action, NPT coordinator for PANYS and one of the coordinators for the April 30-May 2 international conference, march and rally in New York City.  She was the national co-chair of United for Peace and Justice and is a member of the Caddo tribe of Oklahoma.

Taeho Lee (Workshop: Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism) is Deputy Secretary General of People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD).

Leimomi (Workshop: Weaving Stories) is from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, growing up between there and Hawaii.  She is currently a student at Chapman University in California.  Leimomi was a speaker at the 2007 and 2008 National Think Outside the Bomb Conferences, sharing how communities of the Marshall Island are affected by the massive radiation contamination in their country, deposited by over 100 U.S. and U.K. nuclear bomb tests.

Peter Lems (Workshops: Afghanistan and Central Asian War, Iraq War and Occupation…) is the program director for Education and Advocacy on Iraq and Afghanistan for the American Friends Service Committee.

Katherine Locke (Workshop: Youth Lobbying and Messaging),  from Philadelphia, USA, is a research assistant and new media specialist at the Project for Nuclear Awareness where she enjoys tweeting and ruminating over US national security policy.

Andrew Lichterman (Workshop: Looking Up at the Apocalypse) is a lawyer and long-time peace activist living in the San Francisco Bay Area and serves on the boards of the Western States Legal Foundation and the Los Alamos Study Group.

Henry Lowendorf (Workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism) chairs the Greater New Haven Peace Council and No Nukes No War, Connecticut, USA

Isabel Macdonald (Workshop: Towards a Ban of DU Weapons), from San José, Quaker Peace Center, ICBUW Costa Rica, is a Steering Committee Member of ICBUW and is focusing on obtaining Latin American countries’ support towards the goal of a worldwide ban of DU weapons. <isabelmacdonald@yahoo.es>

Alan Mackinnon (Workshop: Iraq War & Occupation: Consequences…) has been actively involved in Scottish CND for over 30 years. He was the chair of Scottish CND  in the late 80s- early 90s and has been again for the past 6 years. Also involved in sister organization “Scotland’s for Peace,” which brings together CND and other peace organizations as well as all Scottish faith groups and trade unions. He was recently part of Scottish government working group Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons, part of STUC/CND research team which has produced 2 reports on “Trident, Jobs and Scotland’s Economy,” and is the author of several pamphlets , the most recent of which is “Expeditionary War or Territorial Defense?”

Tejaswini Madabhushi (Workshop: The Nuclear Cycle) is a grad student at the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and a grassroots activist against uranium mining in India.  He is a member of JOAR- Jharkhandi Organization against Radiation and CNDP- Coalition of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.

Abbacca Anjain Madison (Workshop: Global Hibakusha) is a former senator of the Marshall Islands from Rongelap Atoll.  Having the mayor, senator and tribe leader at the time of the Bikini Bomb test as her father or uncles, she tells the whole story of how they fought for the survival of the islanders and how people in the Marshall Islands are still fighting.

Tomas Magnusson (Plenary speaker) has been president of the International Peace Bureau since 2006 and is a lifelong peace activist within the Swedish and international antinuclear and demilitarization movements.  Professionally he works in support of migration and runs development projects in conflict countries such as Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.

Issam Makhoul (workshops: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism, Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East), Chairperson, ‘Emile Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies’. A former member of the Knesset,(Israeli Parliament) from 1999-2006 for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (HADASH). In the Knesset, and publicly, Makhoul has expressed opposition to Israel’s nuclear policy and has lead the campaign to close the nuclear reactor in Dimona. He is also a strong advocate in Israel for establishing a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East . He organized a Conference on August 6th, 2009 in Haifa “For A Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons and Weapons of Mass Destruction.” and initiated an Israeli coalition for promoting this goal.

Alfred L. Marder (Workshop: Peace as a Human Right) is president of the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities, vice president of the World Peace Council, and president of the US Peace Council.

Kevin Martin (Workshop: Beyond the NPT) has worked with Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund in various roles since 1985 and has served as the organization’s executive director since September, 2001.

Paul Kawika Martin (Workshop: Afghanistan and Central Asian War) is Peace Action’s (formerly SANE/Freeze) political director, working with their 100,000 paid members and 100 chapters to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts with Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq.

Jay Marx (Workshop: Nuke Power is  THE Way to Nuclear Weapons) joins Ellen Thomas on the Proposition One Campaign and comes to New York on their Walk for Nuclear Disarmament from Washington D.C., where he continues the 29-year nuclear disarmament vigil in front of the White House begun by William ‘Doubting’ Thomas.

Biju Mathew (Workshop: The Nuclear Cycle) is a member of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance Organizing Committee.

Dave Mckee (workshop: National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialsim) is president of the Canadian Peace Congress.

Michael Menser (Workshop: The Role of the Cities) is a co-founder of the U.S. Participatory Budgeting Project and the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and teaches at Brooklyn College.

Zia Mian (Plenary speaker; Workshops: Afghanistan & Central Asian War) directs the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton University ’s Program on Science and Global Security  and is a staff member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. He is associate editor of Science & Global Security, an international journal for arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation policy, and serves on the board of Peace Action and on the editorial board of MERIP. He is co-editor of Bridging Partition: People’s Initiatives for Peace between India and Pakistan (2010).

Natalia Mironova (Plenary speaker; Workshops: Why & How to Build a Carbon-free…; Global Hibakusha) was born in Poland and grew up in Ukraine, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Russia.  She is a founder of the Movement for Nuclear Safety and a member of the board of directors of the Institute of Public Policy and Law. By training, Natalia is an energy sector engineer , early on making a critical analysis of the plutonium economy as the way of fissile materials proliferation, and since 1989 has been leading the fight to prevent the building of nuclear power plants with breeder reactors. As a member of the regional parliament,  she advocated to stop spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and successfully organized a local referendum on the subject in 1991. Being a member of the regional government, in 1992 she released information on the 500,000 victims affected by the activities of the first plutonium production in Russia. As a member of the High Ecological Council of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, she helped organize wide public discussion of the all-Russian referendum to ban the import of radioactive waste in Russia in 2000.  In 2002, Natalia won a case in the Supreme Court against the Government of Russia to stop the import of 370 tons of spent fuel for storage and reprocessing in Russia. Also holding a doctorate in sociology, Natalia has examined the roots of nuclear proliferation and the role of NGOs in the movement for abolishing weapons of mass destruction in her book Role of the Civil Society in the Modern State Governance, published in 2007. Natalia is an advocate of public participation in policy principles. She organized multilateral hearings in the State Duma and public debate concerning corruption and breaking of the spirit of nonproliferation by the Russian Nuclear Waste Legislation this 2010 (www.nuclearpolicy.ru). Since 1994 Natalia has had to contend with KGB and Administrative pressure to moderate her stances.  nmironova@gmail.com

Kheder Kareem Mohammed (Workshops: A – bombings & Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians; Role of Cities) is the mayor of Halabja, Iraq, which in 1988 was bombarded with poison gas by Iraqi government forces in the largest chemical weapons attack in history against a civilian-populated area, recognized on March 1, 2010 by the Iraqi High Court as an act of genocide against the Kurdish People;

Haruko Moritaki (Workshops: A – bombings &  Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians, Towards a Ban of DU Weapons) is a ao-director of Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA), executive director of NO DU Hiroshima Project, and a board member of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons(ICBUW).  haruko-m@f3.dion.ne.jp

Hattie Nestel (Workshop: Nuke Power is THE Way to Nuclear Weapons), of Shut It Down Affinity Group,  has written “Taking on Nuclear Power: Pitfalls and Successes at Energy Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant and Beyond” and has been arrested 7 times at Vermont Yankee.

Habib Nazer (Workshop: Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East) is a peace and social justice activist campaigning for peace and progress in Iran and is the convener of the North American chapter of Committee for the Defense of the Iranian Peoples Right (CODIR). codir.canada@gmail.com

Agneta Norberg (Workshops: No to NATO, Winning the Withdrawal of American Military Bases) is vice chair of the Swedish Peace Council, a member of the steering committee of the International Peace Bureau, and on the board of directors for the Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space, the Swedish Peace Council, and Abolition 2000 Council.  agneta.norberg@gmail.com

Jennifer Nordstrom (Workshops: Why & How to Build a Carbon-Free…, Looking Up at the Apocalypse) has worked in international nuclear disarmament for years, is currently coordinating the Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free campaign for the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and is a core organizer for the US youth-led Think Outside the Bomb network for nuclear abolition.  jennifer@ieer.org

Satoko Norimatsu (Workshop: A – bomb and Indiscriminate Bombing) is the Founding Director of the Peace Philosophy Centre, Director of Vancouver Save Article 9, and a member of Network for Okinawa. 

Matashichi Oishi (Workshop: Global Hibakusha) is an ex-crew member of the Fifth Lucky Dragon, a tuna boat contaminated by deadly fallout from the hydrogen bomb test on March 1, 1954, in the Pacific Ocean’s Bikini Atoll.  He reveals yet another unknown tragedy caused by the H-bomb test in the midst of the nuclear arms race.

Nadine Padilla (Plenary speaker; Workshop: Weaving Stories) is Navajo and Pueblo (Isleta/Laguna) from Bluewater Lake, NM.  She began working with SAGE Council as a community organizer in 2006, working on Native American healthcare and environmental issues.  She currently serves as the coordinator for the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE), a coalition of grassroots organizations working to address the uranium legacy that still plagues many communities.

Christopher Paine (Workshop: Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex) is director of  the Nuclear Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC, which he joined as a senior analyst in June 1991. His 30 years of experience include working as Senator Ted Kennedy’s defense aide, as a research fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, and as co-founder of national campaigns to enact a Nuclear Weapons Freeze and stop deployment of the MX intercontinental ballistic missile. cpaine@nrdc.org

Melvin Won Pat-Borja (Workshop: Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism; Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) is a high-school teacher in the Guam Department of Education.  He is an award-winning slam poet, and voice of dissent to the Guahan build-up for the island’s young generation. liberateguam@gmail.com

Marianne H. Perez (Workshop: Disarmament Through Governmental Infrastructures…) is a Peace Educator and Board member of New Yorkers for a Department of Peace.  mariannehperez@gmail.com

Claudia Peterson (Workshop: Global Hibakusha) grew up downwind of the Nevada nuclear testing grounds and is suffering from radiation induced illnesses.

Baltazar ‘Bal’ Pinguel (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of American Military Bases) has been active with the anti-military bases struggle in the Philippines since the late 1960s and was American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC) national coordinator for Peacebuilding and Prevention of Conflict until October 2009.  balpinguel@gmail.com

Lisa Putkey (Workshop: Weaving Stories) is a Scoville Fellow with Peace Action working to mobilize youth around nuclear abolition with Think Outside the Bomb. She attended the University of California at Berkeley where she organized to end the UC’s management of the Livermore and Los Alamos nuclear weapons labs.  She worked on the Mayors for Peace Campaign as an intern for Western States Legal Foundation and later as a union representative and a community organizer in Oakland, Ca.

M. V. Ramana (Workshop: Looking Up at the Apocalypse) has worked extensively on issues related to nuclear weapons and energy in South Asia and is on the National Coordinating Committee of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.

Ibrahim Ramey (Plenary speaker) is an international speaker, media producer, and activist for social justice, human rights, and disarmament.  He directs human rights work for the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and also serves as Vice President of the Council of Trustees of the Temple of Understanding in New York City.  He is a member of the steering committee of Religious NGO’s at the United Nations and a board member of the Muslim Women’s Institute.

Ian Ramsey-North (Workshop: Youth Lobbying and Messaging), from Philadelphia, USA, is assistant to the director for Development and Youth Outreach at the Project for Nuclear Awareness.

J. Narayana Rao (Plenary speaker; Workshop: Missile Defense Deployments Impact Hopes for Nuclear Disarmament) lives in Nagpur, India and belongs to the All-India Peace & Solidarity Organization.  He is a retired Railway Trade Union activist and is a leading organizer in his country on the issue of preventing India from becoming a partner in the U.S. program of space warfare technology development.
jnrao36@sify.com

Ambassador Sylvester Ekundayo Rowe (Workshop: Peace as a Human Right) Dr. Rowe is a former Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations where his areas of responsibility included peacekeeping, disarmament and non-proliferation, small arms and light weapons, human rights, and Security Council affairs. He has served as Vice Chairman and Rapporteur of the General Assembly’s First Committee (international peace and security) and as Chairman of the Disarmament Commission. He led his country’s delegation to the 2005 NPT Review Conference, and chaired the Preparatory Committee of the 2006 UN Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons. For many years Dr. Rowe was also head of the Sierra Leone delegation to the UN Committee of Peacekeeping Operations and the former UN Human Rights Commission between 2001 and 2003. He actively participated in the drafting of international instruments such as the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Instrument on Marking and Tracing of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
Dr. Rowe was one of the negotiators and drafters of the 1999 Lome Peace Agreement to end the decade long rebel war in Sierra Leone, and initiated the establishment of Radio 98.1 which was played a major role in the restoration of democracy and constitutional order in Sierra Leone in 1998. He has been a Visiting and later an Adjunct Professor at Long Island University (C.W. Post Campus) in New York, and taught a course on the UN and human rights at Fordham University, New York in 2009. The subjects of his writings and lectures include peace, peacekeeping, nonalignment, justice, security and reconciliation.
Dr. Rowe is currently serving as Non-Governmental Representative of IAPMC to the United Nations.

Randy Rydell (Workshop: Debunking Nuclear Deterrence) is senior political affairs officer with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.

Carlos Fernando Salamanca (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of American Military Bases) represents the Colombia No Bases Coalition and is based in New York.  c_fercho@yahoo.com

Maryam Shansab (Plenary speaker; Workshop: Afghanistan & Central Asian War) is an Afghan-American graduate student in immunology and a member of United for Justice with Peace, Afghanistan Task Force.

Joanne Sheehan (Workshop: The Nuclear Cycle) works with War Resisters League/New England and War Resisters International and has been involved in nonviolent campaigns against nuclear weapons and for economic conversion.

Hiroshi Shimizu (Workshop: Roles of Cities) is mayor of Yaizu, Japan, the city from which the Lucky Dragon fishing boat sailed in 1954 and was caught in the radioactive fallout from the 17-megaton “Bravo” US nuclear weapons test at Bikini atoll (sometimes considered the third nuclear weapons use).

Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons (Workshop: How to Prohibit & Eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction) is president of The Simons Foundation, Pugwash Canada.

Alice Slater (Workshop: Why & How to Build a Carbon-free…) is NY Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Abolition 2000 Network and as convener of its Sustainable Energy Working Group, is on the executive dommittee of the Middle Powers Initiative and the board of the Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.  aslater@rcn.com

Michael Spies (Workshop: Disarmament Through Governmental Infrastructure…) is political affairs officer, Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch, Office for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations. spiesm@un.org

Hiroshi Taka (Workshop: Beyond the NPT) is secretary general of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs.

Dr. Terumi Tanaka (Plenary speaker) is secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A-H Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo).  Born 29 April, 1932, Mr. Tanaka was living in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945 killing five members of his immediate family. He graduated from the Science University of Tokyo in 1960 and was awarded a degree of Doctor of Engineering by Tohoku University in 1995.  Since 1969, as a director of Nihon Hidankyo, he has been involved in the movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons and pressing his government for adequate compensation for victims of the atomic bomb.

Yuki Tanaka (Workshop: A – bombings &  Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians) is a professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and a board member of HANWA, Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition. 

Ellen Thomas (Workshop: Nuke Power is THE Way to Nuclear Weapons) campaigns throughout the United States at nuclear power and nuclear weapons facilities to bring her Let the People Decide voter initiative to the public, a major positive campaign to change how U.S. taxpayer money is spent, on education, healthcare and clean energy, rather than nuclear weapons/power: Proposition One in 2010, the Economic Conversion Act.

Yayoi Tsuchida (Workshop: Challenging Asia-Pacific Militarism) is the assistant secretary general of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs and a member of the steering committee of the International Peace Bureau.

Hernando Valencia-Villa (Workshop: Peace as a Human Right) Born in Pereira, Colombia Hernando is a legal expert in international human rights law and armed conflict, international criminal law, and transitional justice.  He is a professor of constitutional and Colombian law in the Law School and the Political Science Department at the University of the Andes, and a Research Professor of international human rights law and humanitarian law at the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations of the National University of Colombia.  He was secretary general of the National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources and Environment and a ppecial prosecutor for Human Rights (Bogota).  He is a visiting professor of international human rights law and humanitarian law at the University Carlos III of Madrid and a deputy secretary general and legal coordinator of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the Organization of American States (Washington).

Michael Veiluva (Workshop: Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East) is counsel to the Western States Legal Foundation, author of the book Burdens of Proof: Iran, the US and Nuclear Weapons (2009), and contributor on Iran’s nuclear program to the 2010 publication by Reaching Critical Will, Beyond Arms Control: Challenges and Choices for Nuclear Disarmament.

Pierre Villard (Plenary speaker; Workshop: Beyond the NPT)has been co-chair of Le Mouvement de la Paix and vice-president of IPB since 2002. He is also a member of the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000 and the French coordinator of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).

David Vine (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of American Military Bases) is assistant professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, and author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. Mr. Vine is conducting research about the global network of U.S. military bases. vine@american.edu

Alyn Ware (Workshop: How to Prohibit & Eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction) is an IALANA consultant, coordinator of the Parliamentarians Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and winner of the 2009 Right Livelihood Award.

Nagahisa Wada (Workshop:  Beyond the NPT) lives in Osaka, Japan and has been active in the movement against atomic weapons since the testing of a hydrogen bomb over the Bikini Atoll in 1954. He was a member of the Executive Board of Gensuikin from its founding in 1965 until 2002. At present, he is an Expert Committee member.

Dave Webb (Workshop: Missile Defense Deployments Impact Hopes…, Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the U.S…Beyond the NPT) is vice-chair of the UK National Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND); convener of Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; convener of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space; and a member of Scientists for Global Responsibility. He is also professor of engineering and director of the Praxis Centre (for the ‘Study of Information Technology for Peace, Conflict and Human Rights’) at Leeds Metropolitan University. globalnet@mindspring.com

Cora Weiss (Workshop: Peace as a Human Right) is the President of the Hague Appeal for Peace. She ran the disarmament program at The Riverside Church from 1978-88 during the ministry of Rev. William Sloane Coffin. She was a leader of Women Strike for Peace when it worked to educate public opionion on the perils of atmospheric nuclear testing and became a leader in the Vietnam anti-war movement. She has devoted her life to the movements for civil rights, human rights, peace and gender justice. She was the past president of the International Peace Bureau, which she represents at the United Nations. The Hague Appeal for Peace focuses on peace education. The Hague Appeal conference in 1999 had two banner calls: Time to Abolish War and Peace is a Human Right.

Melvin Wonpat-Borja (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of American Military Bases) is presently a high school teacher, slam poet, and voice of dissent to the Guahan build-up for the island’s young generation.  liberateguam@gmail.com

Katsuma Yagasaki (Workshop: Winning the Withdrawal of Foreign Military Bases) is a doctor of science and professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus (Okinawa) and, as a member of the Okinawa Peace Committee, issued an alert for the internal exposure to radiation from depleted uranium shells.  yagasaki888@yahoo.co.jp

Toshinori Yamada (Workshop: How to Prohibit & Eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction) is a board member of JALANA, professor of international law at Meiji University, Tokyo, and one of the translators of Securing our Survival (SOS): The case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

Takashi Yoshihara (Workshop: Roles of Cities) is a hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) and chairman of the Nagasaki City Council.

Marilyn B. Young (Workshop: A-Bombings & Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians) teaches history at New York University and is, with Yuki Tanaka, co-editor of Bombing Civilians: A twentieth century history.

Lauren Zajac (Workshop: Weaving Stories) is a 4th year medical student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC and will be starting a residency program in Social Pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center later this year.  During medical school, she served as national student representative for Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and organized medical student campaigns about environmental and security issues, including nuclear disarmament.  Before medical school, she received her Masters in Public Health and worked as an environmental health activist in Michigan.