Officers
Ambassador Peter Galbraith– Chair
Former U.S. Ambassador
Lisa Perry– Secretary
AT THE BRINK
Samuel Knight– Treasurer
Attorney
Board of Directors
Mark Appleton
Former Obama Administration Official and Congressional Staffer
Spencer Boyer
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Dr. Tess Bridgeman
Just Security, NYU Law RCLS
Dr. Togzhan Kassenova
Expert in Proliferation Financing; University at Albany, SUNY
Dr. Edward Levine
Former Senior Professional Staff on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee
Sharon Squassoni
George Washington University
James Walsh
Expert in International Security issues; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
National Advisory Board
Senator Byron Dorgan
Former Senator from North Dakota
Lt. General Robert Gard
U.S. Army (Ret.)
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.
Former U.S. Diplomat
Joseph P. Hoar
General, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
John Isaacs
Senior Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
Arlen “Dirk” Jameson
Lt. General, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)
Gene Pokorny
Consultant
John C. Polanyi
University of Toronto
Frank von Hippel
Princeton University
Leonard Weiss
Stanford University
Robert Zevin
Robert Brooke Zevin Associates, Inc.
Affiliations for Identification Only
Biographies
Mark Appleton
Mark Appleton has served in various national security and foreign policy positions throughout the U.S. government. Most recently he served as an advisor to Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, counseling him on foreign policy, defense, and national security matters. He also managed the senator’s interests as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ranking member of its Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy.
Previously, Mark was an Obama administration appointee at the Departments of State and Energy. At the State Department, he served as an Assistant Coordinator for Iran Nuclear Implementation and worked on the team responsible for coordinating efforts across the United States government to implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed to by the P5+1, European Union, and Iran in July 2015. At the Energy Department, Mark was a Special Advisor and the principal traveling aide to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. While there, he advised the secretary on a wide range of operational, energy, and national security matters and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Iran nuclear negotiations resulting in the Lausanne Framework and the JCPOA. Mark also previously served as a Special Assistant to Energy Secretary Steven Chu after first joining the Obama Administration as a White House intern in the spring of 2011.
Mark graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University where he received his bachelor’s degree in history and was a Fulbright-Nehru scholar to India. He has completed coursework at the U.S. Army War College and is presently a joint JD/MBA candidate at Northwestern University where he is an Articles Editor on the Northwestern Journal of Human Rights.
Spencer Boyer
Spencer P. Boyer is a Partner in the Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), leading a new National Security, Defense, and Aerospace practice. ASG, part of DGA Group, is a premier global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm. Directly before ASG, he spent the 2024 winter academic term in residence at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he was the Magro Family Distinguished Fellow in International Affairs at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, teaching a course on Russian influence in Europe. He recently completed nearly 3 years of service in the Biden Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy where he was responsible for managing the day-to-day defense relationship between the United States and NATO, the European Union, and more than 40 countries in Europe. Boyer served in senior roles in both Obama administrations. From 2009 – 2011, he was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, where his portfolio included Western Europe, public diplomacy, and public affairs. From 2014 – 2017, he was the National Intelligence Officer for Europe in the National Intelligence Council—the center for long-range strategic thinking within the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Since 2013, Mr. Boyer has been an Adjunct Professor with the BMW Center for German and European Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is also a Global Fellow in the Global Europe Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Wilson Center). He has been a Director, Senior Fellow, or Visiting Scholar with numerous think tanks, including the Center for American Progress, the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the Brookings Institution, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He began his professional career as an international lawyer, serving in The Hague as a Law Clerk to the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in Zurich as a Staff Attorney at the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland, and in Paris as Counsel at the International Court of Arbitration. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he specialized in public international law and the work of international organizations. While at NYU, he also obtained a master’s degree in French Studies, with a concentration in French politics, history, and economy.
Tess Bridgeman
Dr. Tess Bridgeman is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security and Senior Fellow & Visiting Scholar at NYU Law’s Reiss Center on Law and Security. She served in the White House during the Obama administration as Special Assistant to the President, Associate Counsel to the President, and Deputy Legal Adviser to the National Security Council. Bridgeman previously served in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser as Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser and as an Attorney Adviser in the Office of Political-Military Affairs. Bridgeman has a DPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar; a JD from NYU Law School, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, where she was an Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar and a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar; and a BA from Stanford University. She is an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, serves on the Strategic Initiatives Committee of the American Society for International Law (ASIL), is a member of the board of the Women’s Foundation California, and lectures on national security at Berkeley Law.
Peter Galbraith
Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith is the chairman of the board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and is the the Center’s Senior Diplomatic Fellow. Prior to joining the Center, Galbraith was a professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College. He has held senior positions in the United States government and with the United Nations, including U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and Director for Political, Constitutional, and Electoral Affairs at the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).
Togzhan Kassenova
Dr. Togzhan Kassenova is a senior fellow with the Project on International Security, Commerce, and Economic Statecraft (PISCES) at the Center for Policy Research, SUNY-Albany. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Nuclear Policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Kassenova is an expert on nuclear politics, WMD nonproliferation, and financial crime prevention. She is a leading policy expert on proliferation financing and advised numerous governments and private sector on the subject. From 2011 to 2015, she served on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Kassenova holds an MA in Financial Integrity from Case Western Reserve University, MA in Euro-Asian Studies from the University of Reading, a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Leeds and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS). She is the author of Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2022)
Sam Knight
Sam Knight is a retired attorney whose practice had focused on real estate and environmental issues. Over the years, he has been on the board and treasurer of several nonprofit organizations and continues to serve as treasurer of the Belmont Land Trust and on the board of the Buzzard’s Bay Coalition.
Dr. Edward Levine
Dr. Edward Levine is a retired senior professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he served from 1997 until 2011. He was a professional staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1976 until 1997.
Dr. Levine was the Foreign Relations Committee’s lead Democratic specialist on arms control, nonproliferation, and U.S arms sales to other countries. He played a major staff role in the Senate’s consideration of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the Moscow Treaty, the New START Treaty, protocols to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, conventions relating to nuclear safety, arms sale agreements with the United Kingdom and Australia, and the U.S.-India nuclear agreement. He also helped to oversee and to maintain funding for U.S. nonproliferation programs and U.S. contributions to the IAEA and the CTBTO Preparatory Commission.
Dr. Levine served both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. One of his roles was to write or co-author the committee’s assessments of U.S capabilities to monitor compliance with SALT II, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the Threshold Test-Ban Treaty and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Prior to working for the U.S. Senate, Dr. Levine taught political science at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and at Rice University. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of California (Berkeley) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations from Yale University.
Lisa Perry
Lisa Perry is the Communications Director for the William J. Perry Project and creator and host of the AT THE BRINK podcast. A graduate of George Washington University, she works to raise awareness and understanding of non-proliferation issues among post-Cold War generations, while exploring new ways to connect with the public on this often overlooked topic.
Inspired by the experiences and legacy of her grandfather, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, Lisa Perry created the AT THE BRINK podcast to explore the personal and lasting impact of nuclear weapons. Her work has allowed her to collaborate with a broad range of voices in this field.
Sharon Squassoni
Sharon Squassoni’s research, writing and policy-making has focused on reducing risks from nuclear energy and weapons for more than three decades. She has held senior positions at the State Department, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Congressional Research Service, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Strategic & International Studies. She is on the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the PIR Center in Moscow.
Dr. Jim Walsh
Dr. Jim Walsh is an expert in international security and Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program (SSP). Dr. Walsh’s research and writings focus on international security, and in particular, topics involving nuclear weapons. He is one of a handful of Americans who has traveled to both Iran and North Korea for talks with officials about nuclear issues. Dr. Walsh has testified before the United States Senate on the issue of nuclear terrorism and on Iran’s nuclear program. The British newspaper, The Independent, named Dr. Walsh and his co-authors as having offered one of the 10 best and original ideas of 2008.
He is the international security contributor to NPR’s “Hear and Now,” and a contributor for WGBH (PBS, Boston), the NBC affiliate in Boston (WHDH), Al Jazeera America, and CNN. He also contributes a regular column for WBUR (NPR-Boston). His comments and analysis have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Economist, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and numerous other national and international media outlets (over 1000 TV appearances since 2001). His film credits include Testament (Paramount Pictures, 2004), Meltdown (FX channel, 2004), and Fortress Australia (Australia Broadcast Corporation, 2002).
Before coming to MIT, Dr. Walsh was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has taught at both Harvard University and MIT. Dr. Walsh received his Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Byron Dorgan
Senator Byron Dorgan is Senior Policy Advisor at Arentfox.com and serves as co-chair, along with Phil English, of the firm’s government relations practice. Senator Dorgan served in the US Senate leadership for 16 years, first as Assistant Democratic Floor Leader and then as Chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. He has had a prolific career in public service at both the state and federal levels. He served as the elected State Tax Commissioner for the state of North Dakota followed by 12 years in the US House of Representatives and 18 years in the US Senate. Over the course of his career in public office, Senator Dorgan consistently promoted and defended the economic needs of rural America, advocated for renewable energy and energy independence, and for sound economic policies. He was a senior senator on the Appropriations, Energy, and Commerce Committees in the Senate and chairman of key subcommittees on aviation, energy, water, and Indian issues. He served on the Ways and Means Committee in the House. He is recognized as a leader in energy, aviation, agriculture, water, economic, and Native American issues.
Lt. General Robert Gard
Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr. is a National Advisory Board member of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. During his military career, Gard saw combat in both the Korea and Vietnam wars, and served a three year tour in Germany. He also served as Executive Assistant to two secretaries of defense; the first Director of Human Resources Development for the U.S. Army; Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; and President of National Defense University (NDU).
Thomas Graham, Jr.
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. was Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament from 1994 to 1997. Internationally known as one of the leading authorities in the field of arms control agreements to combat the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, Ambassador Graham has served as a senior U.S. diplomat involved in the negotiation of every major international arms control and non-proliferation agreement for the past 30 years. Currently, he is Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thorium Power.
Joseph P. Hoar
General Joseph P. Hoar is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer and former Commander of the United States Central Command. During the Vietnam War, Hoar was assigned with the 2nd Marine Division, commanding Company M, 3rd Battalion. Hoar was the Deputy for Operations for the Marine Corps during the Gulf War, and prior to that he was General H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s chief of staff at Central Command. After retirement, he set up the consulting firm J.P. Hoar & Associates. Since 2002, Hoar has actively opposed the war in Iraq.
John Isaacs
John Isaacs is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Council for a Livable World. He is one of the leaders of the nation’s arms control community and has long been an expert on the workings of Congress, representing the Council on Capitol Hill since 1978. Isaacs previously served as a Legislative Assistant on foreign affairs to Representative Stephen Solarz (D-NY), a Legislative Representative on foreign policy and defense budgets for Americans for Democratic Action, and a Foreign Service Officer in Vietnam.
Arlen “Dirk” Jameson
Lt. General Dirk Jameson served as Deputy Commander in Chief and Chief of Staff of U.S. Strategic Command before retiring from the U.S. Air Force in 1996 after more than three decades of active service. Gen. Jameson was responsible for directing the headquarters staff of 4,000 men and women and participating in numerous nuclear forums with the leaders of the Russian Federation Strategic Rocket Forces.
Gene Pokorny
Gene Pokorny was Chairman of Research International/Cambridge, a market research and consulting practice that is a unit of the Research International division of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications services organization. Pokorny has also been a Director of The Benton Foundation in Washington, D.C. and is currently a Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute in Cambridge. Pokorny has been active numerous political campaigns over the last 30 years, at both the state and national levels.
John C. Polanyi
John C. Polanyi is a chemist and educator who, with Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986 for his contribution to the field of chemical-reaction dynamics. Polanyi developed a technique that is known as infrared chemiluminescence based on the observation that molecules, when excited, emit infrared light. He accepted a research position with the National Research Council of Canada in 1952 and began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1956, accepting the title of University Professor in 1974.
Frank von Hippel
Frank von Hippel is a nuclear physicist and Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. A former Assistant Director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology, von Hippel’s areas of policy research include nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, energy, and checks and balances in policymaking for technology. Prior to coming to Princeton, he worked for ten years in the field of elementary-particle theoretical physics.
Leonard Weiss
Leonard Weiss is a former full professor of applied mathematics and engineering, and was for many years the staff director of a standing US Senate committee where he produced legislation and directed investigations in the areas of energy, nuclear nonproliferation, and government management. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978. He is currently an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and writes frequently on public policy issues.
Robert Zevin
Robert Zevin is President of Zevin Asset Management, Inc. He has been a leader in socially responsible investing (SRI) since his pioneering work in SRI forty years ago. Zevin played a leading role in the anti-apartheid divestment campaign in the 1980s, testifying before dozens of city councils, state legislators, and college and university boards as well as writing the major studies used by the states of Connecticut and Michigan to justify divestment. He has also written many articles and published two books.
