Peter is a senior researcher at Ridgeway Information, a London-based research consultancy, where he focuses on nonproliferation issues in the Middle East. Before moving to London in 2016, Peter spent 11 years as an officer in the Australian Navy, during which he completed a series of sea postings on a variety of vessels, qualifying as a maritime warfare officer in 2009 before going on to specialise as a hydrographic surveyor in 2010. Highlights of his naval career include leading a survey mission to Antarctica; a secondment with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as the deputy operations manager for the search for Malaysian aircraft MH370; and deploying to the Middle East as the personal aide to Australia’s regional commander. Peter holds an MA in strategy and security from the University of New South Wales and an MA in geopolitics from King’s College London, where he is currently undertaking a part time PhD. His doctoral research is focused on the use of narrative theory in political geography.

I am most excited to work on projects that… involve people from diverse backgrounds, with diverse perspectives—people who make my world bigger.

I am looking for partners that can help me… understanding the influence of storytelling and how it helps people care about issues, care about the world, and about how to transform that caring into action.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… when solving problems in the company of invigorating people who share a sense of common purpose.

Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… are those that borrow ideas and approaches from other disciplines and help translate complex and technical material into something more accessible.

Phillip is a branding and communications strategist with more than seven years of experience in both B2B and consumer markets. He has worked on global brand campaigns and helped transform a mobile tech startup into a profitable data and research business. His clients include Best Buy, American Express, Canadian Club, Hewlett Packard, Yoplait, Nature Valley, and Del Monte, among others. Phillip is also a recent graduate of the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York and received the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award for his work there. He currently works as a strategist at RoAndCo, an award-winning creative studio in New York.

I am most excited to work on projects that… employ transdisciplinary thinking to meet the demands of a changing world.

I am looking for partners that can help me… collaborate and create with interesting people in different fields.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… working on a global branding campaign for a nonprofit committed to improving the health and wellness of marginalized groups.

Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… Technology is disrupting the way brands and people communicate with one another at an accelerated rate. These technologies are contributing to somewhat of an identity crisis. Recently I’ve been interested in how our individual identities will evolve as we adopt new forms of artificial intelligence to communicate with one another.

Harry Jones is a leadership strategist with more than 20 years of experience in the US military. After flying helicopters for the Army for nearly a decade, Harry obtained a PhD in philosophy and taught cadets at West Point, focusing on ethics, character development, and creativity. The course he created, Character by Design, introduced students to design skills and invited them to address character-related challenges at the United States Military Academy. Harry has witnessed firsthand the need for leaders who can operate effectively in complex environments where ambiguity and uncertainty are the norm. In view of this, he is especially passionate about developing leaders of character who are expert problem-solvers, both highly creative and deeply ethical. Over the years, Harry has designed and executed numerous immersion experiences for leaders, engaging a variety of creative organizations ranging from IDEO and SYPartners to the Culinary Institute of America and the Museum of Modern Art. He has also given talks on design and ethics at Oxford University, frog design, and other notable organizations.

I’m most excited to work on projects that… bring together those from a variety of areas of expertise to address the kinds of complex problems that defy solution by any single discipline.

I am looking for partners that can help me… with developing ethical ways to leverage environmental factors to help develop leaders of character within an organizational context.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… seeing students light up after applying newly learned design skills to a real-world challenge, feeling both the power of the process and the confidence that they could make a difference.

Innovations in my field I’m most excited to work on… involve leveraging insights from empirical research in psychology to inform more psychologically realistic approaches to character development.

Justin is a strategic designer working on the world’s most challenging problem sets such as healthcare, sustainability, and education. His passion is to tackle these systems challenges by designing innovative organizational architectures. Justin is the founder of the strategic design consulting firm Commonwealth Advanced Projects. He is also founding director of the Center for Complexity and Systems Practice at the Rhode Island School of Design, which works to reveal how design and other creative practices can navigate and manage complex problems. Until 2018, Justin was the senior lead for strategy at the Finnish Innovation Fund, where he spent a decade working to transform Finnish society toward greater sustainability and human wellbeing. He has also advised research teams at MIT and Harvard on how to use design as a transformative capacity. In 2016, he joined the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation as an advisor. He holds a master’s degree in architecture with commendation from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a BA from the University of Washington.

I am most excited to work on projects that… challenge assumptions and existing epistemologies.

I am looking for partners that can help me… find new sources of insight—new and old ideas about the present, past, and future.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… when I could see a new way of doing an old thing better. For instance, how we build cities or how we treat ischemic stroke.

Innovations in my field that I are most excited to work on… include giving artists and designers greater agency and access to a world full of complex challenges.

Catherine is a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), where she helped establish geo4nonpro.org, a crowdsourcing website dedicated to analyzing satellite imagery of sites on nonproliferation and defense interest. Her broad research portfolio includes extensive work on trade data analysis and mapping illicit procurement networks; satellite imagery and remote sensing analysis on nuclear nonproliferation-related issues; satellite image processing; and geospatial analysis. She also researches nuclear and missile programs and nonproliferation and export control policies in East Asia, illicit procurement networks and nonproliferation sanctions, and the effect of emerging technologies on nonproliferation policy and strategic stability. Previously, she worked as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and as a radiological and nuclear threats analyst in Washington, DC. She holds an MA in nonproliferation and terrorism studies from MIIS, and a BS in foreign service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

I am most excited to work on projects that… are interdisciplinary in nature. The opportunity to easily hear different perspectives from people whose work is different from mine is incredibly exciting.

I am looking for partners that can help me… with understanding the technical nature of some of my interest areas and how areas of research are understood (or not) and internalized in different disciplines and different communities.

A moment when I feel most inspired in my work is… when I reflect on the totality of just how significant nuclear issues are to our society.

Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… relate thaw the proliferation of machine learning technology impact the analysis of nuclear issues and also impact our collective response to nuclear issues.

Deborah was named executive vice president in 2010. Working with NTI’s president, she oversees the organization’s operations, development, and programs with an annual operating budget of nearly $20 million. She also led the successful development of Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS) as an independent, self-sustaining global network of regional disease surveillance groups, and continues to serve on its board as finance chair. Deborah also leads NTI’s work on all security issues related to China and travels there regularly to meet with government officials and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, she leads NTI’s Middle Eastern partnerships, with a focus in the Levant region, travelling regularly for programmatic work as well as speaking engagements on behalf of NTI.

Prior to NTI, Deborah was vice president of the international consulting firm The Cohen Group and served for 12 years in senior positions with the US Department of Defense in the areas of homeland defense, peacekeeping operations and support, nuclear forces, and counter-proliferation policy. While at the Defense Department, she represented the United States as negotiator with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on multiyear bilateral negotiations around its nuclear program. Rosenblum holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College.

I am most excited to work on projects that… allow me to learn about things that I know nothing about.

I am looking for partners that can help me… to innovate thinking in the threat reduction field.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… when former President Obama embraced the vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… are those that bring new people to the field.