BIOGRAPHIES
Irma Argüello
Irma Argüello is Founder and Chair of the NPS Global Foundation (Non-proliferation for Global Security). Irma completed Defense and Security studies (Master level) at the Escuela de Defensa Nacional, Argentina. Her education also includes a Master degree in Business Administration from IDEA/Wharton School, and a degree in Physics Science from the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
After graduation, Argüello worked as a scientist at the CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission of Argentina) for the LPR (Laboratory of Radio-chemical Processes Project) and worked on the design of a the Argentine reprocessing plant located in Ezeiza, outside Buenos Aires City. She is currently the Head of the Secretariat of the LALN (Latin American and Caribbean Leadership Network for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation).
John Burroughs
Dr. Burroughs is Executive Director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the UN Office of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. He represents LCNP in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums.
He is co-editor and contributor, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? (2007); co-editor and contributor 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). He has additionally published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. Dr. Burroughs also is an adjunct professor of international law at Rutgers Law School, Newark.
Taous Feroukhi
Ambassador Taous Feroukhi started her diplomatic career in 1977. She has served in the Embassies of Algeria in Ottawa, Madrid and Geneva and was involved in international negotiations related to the Helsinki Process, Uruguay World Trade Agreements, NPT Review Conference, Climate Change Convention, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime and the UN Convention Against Corruption. She chaired the Working Group on Definition and Delimitation of Outer Space, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), the Advisory Committee on Safeguards and Verification within the IAEA Statute, and the Committee of the Whole of the lAEA´s 50th General Conference. She also headed the Algerian Delegation to the First Preparatory Committee of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT).
Ambassador Feroukhi obtained a degree in Human Sciences from the "Université d´Alger". She has a diploma from the Institute of Political Sciences Studies and holds a post-graduate degree in International Relations.
Angela Kane
Angela Kane assumed as High Representative for Disarmament Affairs for the United Nations in March 2012. She provides the Secretary-General with advice and support on all arms control, non-proliferation and related security matters. She served as Under-Secretary-General for Management from 2008-2012, overseeing human resources, financial management, procurement and support services and the renovation of the United Nations New York Headquarters campus. From 2005 to 2008, she served as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a core function related to the prevention and resolution of conflicts. She also held the positions of Director in the Department of Political Affairs and Director in the Department of Public Information. She served as Principal Political Officer with former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and worked with the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for the Central American Peace Process.
Angela Kane was educated at the University of München, Bryn Mawr College and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Kamapradipta Isnomo
Minister Counselor Kamapradipta Isnomo joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in 1995 and is currently Political Coordinator for International Peace and Security at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations in New York. He oversees the First Committee of the UNGA and is currently Chair/ Coordinator of the Non-Aligned Movement's Working Group on Disarmament.
From 2007 - 2011, Isnomo served as Counselor for Human Rights at the Indonesian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. He was part of the official delegation during which Indonesia was a member of the United Nations' Human Rights Council. He also served as Deputy Director for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) of the Indonesian MFA from 2011 – 2014.
As a recipient of the British Chevening Award, Isnomo earned a Masters Degree in Politics of International Resources and Development at the University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom in 1999. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in International Relations and minoring in Media Communications at the University of Webster, St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1994.
Benno Laggner
Ambassador Laggner is currently the Head of the Security Policy Division and Ambassador for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Prior to this appointment, he was the Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the President of the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Earlier postings included serving as Head of the UN Coordination Unit in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (2007-2010), as Head of the Political Section at the Swiss Embassy in Berlin (2004-2007) and as Head of the Political Section at the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York (2000-2004). Benno Laggner holds a Master's Degree in International Relations (University of St.Gallen, Switzerland) and also completed postgraduate studies in European Affairs at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
Gaukar Mukhatzhanova
Gaukar Mukhatzhanova is Director of the International Organizations and Non-proliferation Program (IONP) of the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Mukhatzhanova served as an expert on the delegation of Kazakhstan to the 2010 NPT Review Conference and 2009 meeting of the Preparatory Committee. Prior to coming to Monterey, she was Media and Outreach Specialist at the UN Development Programme in Kazakhstan. She is co-author of an Adelphi Book Nuclear Politics of the Non-Aligned Movement: Principles versus Pragmatism (2012) and co-editor of the two-volume collection Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century (2010). She has published in International Security, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, International Herald Tribune. She received her MA in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (2007) and BA in Journalism/Mass Communication, Cum Laude, from the American University in Bulgaria (2001).
Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares
Ambassador Macedo Soares was elected Secretary General of Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) In November 2013. He entered the diplomatic career in 1963 after graduation at the Rio Branco Institute, the diplomatic academy that forms Brazilian diplomats since 1945. From 1963 to 1969, at headquarters, he worked in inter- American relations. He participated in the Brazilian Antarctic Program since its inception in 1982 and joined the first national expedition to that continent (austral summer 1982-83). Until 1986 he headed the Brazilian delegations to all meetings in the framework of the Antarctic Treaty System ( Meetings of the Consultative Parties, negotiation of the Convention on Antarctic Minerals, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research – SCAR).
In 1979, Ambassador Macedo Soares took part in the negotiations for the Convention on Prohibition and Restriction on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) being until 1980 in charge of the disarmament desk in the Brazilian Chancery. From 1998 to 2000, he was a member of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms and Light Weapons convened by the UN Secretary General and Representative of Brasil to the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference that took place in 2001. In 2010, he headed the Delegation of Brazil to the VIII Review Conference of the Treaty on Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
William C. Potter
Dr. Potter is Director of the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He has served as a consultant to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the RAND Corporation, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has been a member of several committees of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences Nonproliferation Panel. His present research focuses on nuclear terrorism and forecasting proliferation developments.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served for five years on the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters and the Board of Trustees of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. He currently serves on the International Advisory Board of the Center for Policy Studies in Russia (Moscow) and has been an advisor to the delegation of Kyrgyzstan at every NPT Review Conference and Preparatory Committee Meeting since 1995