Joan is president and COO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Prior to joining NTI, she held senior positions with the US Department of Energy and worked in New Delhi as an advisor to the US ambassador in the wake of nuclear tests in India and Pakistan. Earlier, she worked as a professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee, where she oversaw Department of Defense nuclear programs and the Department of Energy’s national security programs. Joan began her career in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she was awarded a Presidential Management Internship, and later worked in the Office of Strategic Forces Policy. She is a member of the US Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee and chairs the Directorate Advisory Committee of the National Security Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She holds a master’s degree in public management and a bachelor’s degree in political science.

I am most excited to work on projects that… challenge me to adopt new ways of defining problems, and new approaches to solving them.

I am looking for partners that can help me… exponentially expand public awareness of the nuclear threat, and empower people to take actions that reduce the threat.

A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… when our efforts resulted in a UN Security Council Summit where global leaders pledged to work to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.

Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… include learning how to apply design thinking to inspire greater nuclear threat awareness and engagement.

Ian J. Stewart is a senior researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where he heads Project Alpha. He is also the training advisor for the consortium implementing the European Union’s Partner-2-Partner program on dual-use goods. He is a specialist on issues related to export controls, sanctions, and nonproliferation more generally. An engineer by training, Ian has many years of experience in government and working with companies and international organisations in relation to nonproliferation matters. He was also a research fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Ian is undertaking a part-time PhD in which he examines the evolution of the nonproliferation regime through the lens of collective action. Research for this PhD has taken him to nearly every US presidential archive–from Truman to Reagan–and he has amassed more than 50,000 pages of original primary source materials from archive sources.

Gena Cuba is a design strategist who focuses on reframing large, complex problems in surprisingly simple ways. She spends her time carefully observing and inquiring about the curiosities that we call home, community, work, and purpose. Through ongoing investigations of cultural mores and individual motivations, her work turns observations into empathetic diagnosis and clear roadmaps of action.

Allison has been an imagery analyst for over 25 years, working within the military, tech, defense, media, and academic communities. After honorably serving in the US Army as an imagery analyst from 1991 to 1997, she continued the tradecraft within the defense industry, augmenting US and NATO operations in the Kosovo airstrike campaign and serving as senior analyst and mission planner for Naval Special Warfare Group One. After earning her MA in international policy, Allison established the commercial satellite imagery analysis capability for the British publication Jane’s, publishing open source imagery analysis for six years. In 2015, she joined Google to assist with the establishment of applications for its commercial small satellites. Currently, Allison is principal and founder of Armillary Services, which provides insight on commercial imaging satellites and associated analytics to governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the commercial sector. Concurrently, Allison manages the multi-sensor imagery analysis team at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.