Jackie Aldrette

Jackie Aldrette comes from a large Cuban-Irish American family with a strong awareness of family, community, and the opportunity that we each have to make a positive contribution to the world, close to home and as far as we dare to dream. Since a teenager, she has been fascinated by and worried about processes of globalization, international trade, democratization and defense of human rights, and the inextricable nature of extreme poverty. For the past 15+ years she has been working for an international NGO, AVSI Foundation, which was founded in Italy but is now global in nature and dimension. She manages the U.S. branch, AVSI-USA, and supports AVSI’s portfolio of development and humanitarian assistance projects funded by the U.S. government—USAID, State Department, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Labor—and with support from foundations and individuals. AVSI has a unique method of work which emphasizes assets and resources (rather than deficiencies and needs) and relationships of trust and affection (rather than power). She takes extremely seriously her role of listening to the experience of local staff and partner organizations, and through them the experience of the most vulnerable members of our society, so that she can advocate on their behalf towards the donor community.
 

Javier “Nerf” Ball

Javier “Nerf” Ball is a former Marine aviator and a carrier qualified F/A-18 Instructor pilot with over 3,500 flight hours in various jet, turboprop, and rotary-winged aircraft. A veteran of OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD, DESERT STORM, and IRAQI FREEDOM, he has served in a variety of operational, staff, and command assignments including deputy chief of staff, U.S. Pacific Command; commanding officer, Training Squadron Six; and current operations officer, Multi-National Force-West, Camp Fallujah, Iraq. During his Marine Corps career, he completed numerous worldwide training and combat deployments and has a total of seven years of active service abroad. He retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as a colonel in December 2017 after 30 years of service. His final posting was to Canberra, Australia, where he served as the senior U.S. liaison officer to the Australian Defence Force, a billet he held for over four years and for which he was awarded an Australian Chief of Defence Commendation. He is a graduate of the Amphibious Warfare School, Aviation Safety School, Air Force Command and Staff College, Joint Forces Staff College, and Air War College. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science, and a master's in military operational art and science.
 

Sarah Atwood Barma

Sarah Atwood Barma is a career foreign service officer with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Currently, she oversees private sector engagement, donor coordination, and monitoring and evaluation at USAID/Egypt. Previously with USAID, she oversaw cross-border programming in Eastern Congo and the Central African Republic, and prior to that she led strategy, budgeting, and reporting with USAID/Somalia. Before joining USAID, Sarah managed refugee community services with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Cairo; led programming with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Aden, Yemen; supported development activities throughout the Middle East with the Near East Foundation in New York; and worked as a researcher with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, Belgium. Sarah speaks Arabic, French, and German. She holds a master's degree in Middle East studies from New York University and a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. As a Fulbright scholar, she also studied at the Free University in Berlin. She is a certified yoga instructor and is married with two children.
 

Dr. Mina Chung

Dr. Mina Chung is a pediatric dentist and partner at North American Dental Group in the Chicago area, where she recently led the successful application of best dental practices in the midst of the variable and unknown impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, Mina’s commitment to lifelong learning and cross-border understanding inspired her to obtain a Master of International Affairs and Diplomacy (MIAD) with the goal to make a greater impact on the world through knowledge sharing and compassionate leadership. Throughout her academic and clinical career, Mina has served as a research associate at the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH), managing owner of a multi-specialty group dental practice, longtime clinical assistant professor in pediatric dentistry, and mentor to countless young dentists new to the field. Her passion for service to others led her on international dental missions to Nicaragua and Mexico. Domestically, she has organized and led Veterans Day Free Dental Clinic events, partnering with Lions Club International. She earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and a B.Sc. in dental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). After receiving her doctorate in dental surgery from UIC, she completed residencies in general practice and pediatric dentistry and earned an M.Sc. in oral biology. Most recently, she earned a MIAD in the joint United Nations Institute of Training and Research/Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She is fluent in Korean and possesses a working knowledge of French and Spanish.
 

Dean Fealk

Dean Fealk is managing partner at DLA Piper’s San Francisco office, where he advises leading multinational companies on legal, strategic, and public policy issues related to doing business internationally. He serves civic organizations in leadership capacities and has advised governments around the world on international security and foreign policy issues. Active in civic affairs and public policy, Dean serves as chair of Global Strategy and Innovation at the Halifax International Security Forum and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has advised three presidential campaigns on foreign policy and has represented California in trade and investment missions around the world. He serves on the California Workforce Development Board, has chaired the Northern California District Export Council and served on the Industry Trade Advisory Committee. He has been designated an Honorary Senator of the German Economy, an Eisenhower Fellow to China, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a Marshall Memorial Fellow to the EU, a Fulbright scholar to Korea, a Truman National Security fellow and a Carnegie new leader. He serves on the board of directors of the Bay Area Council and the California Business Roundtable. He has served on the advisory group to GlobalSF, the California Economic Strategy Panel, the Finance Council of the California Democratic Party, the Executive Committee for International Law of the State Bar of California, and the Council for International Trade of the California Chamber of Commerce. Dean is a graduate of the London School of Economics, Leadership San Francisco, and Harvard Business School’s Executive Leadership Program.
 

Jonathan Fortun Vargas

Jonathan Fortun Vargas is an economist in the Global Macroeconomics Department at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington, D.C., where he oversees the work of the Institute in capital flows and also covers G-3 economies. Prior to joining the IIF, Jonathan developed his career in the multilateral sector at the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IADB); before that, he was a financial adviser in Bolivia. He has also been a consultant for trade, financial, and economic topics in Japan and Latin America. His main focus of interest revolves around monetary analysis, financial architecture, inequality, and institutional strength. Jonathan holds an M.A. in international economics and finance from Johns Hopkins University, an M.Sc. in economics/international relations from Kobe University (Japan), Ph.D. coursework at the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies in Tokyo (Japan), and a magna cum laude degree in financial engineering. He is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and English.
 

Kyu-Ryung Hwang

Kyu-Ryung Hwang is the director of assessments at District of Columbia Public Schools. In this role, she oversees federal and state assessments for K-12 students in Washington, D.C. Previously, she worked in international development consulting in the Republic of Korea, where she managed economic and social development projects in Asia, Central America, the Middle East, and Africa. She holds an M.B.A. from INSEAD and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
 

Linda Malilo

Linda Malilo has over 10 years of experience in the design and management of international development programs. She currently works for USAID/Malawi as the DREAMS program management specialist. DREAMS is an HIV prevention program that targets adolescent girls and young women with evidence-based interventions to reduce their vulnerability to HIV. She is the co-chair of the HIV Prevention sub-group of the PEPFAR Malawi program. Prior to this position, she worked as project development specialist in the same organization in a different department. Her role involved working across various technical offices including education, health, environment, and agriculture advising and supporting them in project design and annual program planning. Prior to joining USAID, Linda worked for Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Malawi in various roles with rising responsibility. Her last position with the organization was special projects and training coordinator. In that role, she managed the organization's Adolescent HIV/AIDS program among other responsibilities and scaled up implementation of this program across the three regions of Malawi. Linda has a special interest in adolescent health and women’s rights especially around protection from all forms of violence and access to post-violence services. Linda is married and has two daughters.
 

Etiene Coelho Martins

Etiene Coelho Martins has been a federal judge in São Paulo, Brazil, for seven years. My court has jurisdiction over civil and criminal disputes involving international organizations, migration matters, transnational crimes, and terrorism. Prior to becoming a judge, he was a police officer for 16 years in Rio de Janeiro, where he also supervised and headed the legal department of the Rio de Janeiro State Police Department for three years until his judicial appointment in 2014. His key leadership strengths are self-awareness, a passion for serving others, and Christian-based values. He is a senior fellow at the Weinstein International Foundation in San Francisco, CA, and a judicial fellow at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. In 2017, he was awarded the Weinstein JAMS fellowship to study conflict resolution practices in courts and police departments across the United States. Etiene holds an L.L.M. degree from Harvard Law School. His academic research has focused on international criminal law topics. This spring and summer terms (2021), he has been a guest lecturer in counterterrorism and national security courses at Anthony Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Virginia. He is interested in peace-building and national security topics.
 

William Morrissey

William Morrissey is a US government employee currently focused on Great Power Competition and the maritime domain. He previously focused on African issues and has extensive experience in the defense and security sectors across the continent. He is currently completing his Doctorate in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has a Master’s in Violence, Conflict, and Development from SOAS University of London and a Bachelor’s in International Relations from Georgetown University.
 

Lyudmila "Mila" Nepomnyashchiy

Lyudmila "Mila" Nepomnyashchiy is a senior director with the Community Health Acceleration Partnership, a venture philanthropy initiative hosted by the Office of the WHO Ambassador for Global Strategy. In her current role, Mila focuses on opportunities to expand and strengthen community health systems in resource-limited settings with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Mila is a health systems specialist with 15 years of experience collaborating on and leading projects to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations across public and private sectors. Mila is interested in the multi-disciplinary aspects of priority setting in healthcare when there are limited resources and lives at stake. Originally from Ukraine, Mila has lived and worked in over a dozen countries and has been a fierce advocate for the rights of people affected by HIV/AIDS, notably as co-founder of the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA). She holds an M.Sc. in health economics (international health policy) from the London School of Economics and a B.A. in economics and human rights from Barnard College and the University of Oxford. She loves exploring the outdoors in New York state where she currently resides with her husband and two children.
 

Arwa Sawan

Arwa Sawan is a multilingual journalist, media trainer, and an award-winning film producer and director with extensive experience delivering communication, education, and media for well-known global organizations including IMF, Sky News, Yale University Press, University of Maryland, and Trinity Washington University. As a vendor at the IMF, she provides requisite courses and special topics on the Arabic news media, Middle Eastern culture, politics, social issues, and other Middle East news. In addition, she is a senior media advisor for Qudurat Media UAE in Washington, DC. Sawan is an advocate for cultural understanding through education, which is a key element to peace resolution and mutual respect that can only enrich our humanity and progress. Her passion is to cover humanitarian, women’s rights, immigration, and social justice newscasts and documentaries in collaboration with national and international organizations. She used her strengths in her professional career to communicate and transmit stories to help instigate changes in cultural attitudes towards human suffering. Sawan received a distinguished award to honor her academic achievements from the College of Humanities and Social science (CHSS) at GMU. She speaks fluent Arabic, English, and elementary French. She earned a bachelor’s degree in New Media, Film Production, and Human Rights from George Mason University. Also, she holds a master’s degree in Communication focused on Producing Film, Television, and Video from the American University in Washington, DC.
 

Dr. Nihar Shah

Dr. Nihar Shah is deputy head of the International Energy Analysis Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and presidential director of Berkeley Lab’s Global Cooling Efficiency Program, leading research on alternate refrigerants and energy efficiency of cooling equipment and technical assistance for accelerated deployment through cooling efficiency market transformation policies and programs globally including in China, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He is also co-lead of Berkeley Lab’s Emerging Economies Program, which assists emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in addressing their energy and environmental challenges. Nihar's research has been featured in various media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Forbes Magazine, NPR, and numerous other publications. He regularly advises multilateral institutions and the public and private sector on energy technologies and policies. Before Berkeley Lab, Nihar worked at the California Public Utilities Commission. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.Tech. in thermal and fluids engineering and a B.Tech. in mechanical engineering, both from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. He is a licensed professional mechanical engineer in the State of California.
 

Zac Shaw

Zac Shaw is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency senior liaison to United States European Command (EUCOM). He manages defense partnerships and security cooperation programs with U.S. partners in Europe. From 2015-2018, he was the director for NATO/Europe and Commonwealth partnerships at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSDI), responsible for strengthening and deepening defense, intelligence, and security cooperation with key allies. For over a decade he has worked for the U.S. Department of Defense on intelligence and defense policy, international security cooperation, foreign partnerships, NATO, and European affairs. Zac was born and raised in Virginia, studiying religion and philosophy at the University of Virginia and later government and security studies at Johns Hopkins University. Zac enjoys soccer, hiking, camping, and spending time with his family. He has received a number of foreign awards for his collaboration with U.S. partners, including the Badge of Honor of the German Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and the National Defense Medal of the French Republic. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (since 2020) and the German Council on Foreign Relations (since 2019).
 

Emma Verhoeff

Emma Verhoeff is deputy head of the Political Department of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Washington, D.C. She is a political scientist with strong roots in Europe. In the last few years, she has focused on security affairs as a diplomat in Vienna working on issues related to arms control and non-proliferation. Now that she is in D.C., she deals with U.S./EU-Asia relations, sanctions policy, and arms control.
 

Michael Ward

Michael Ward is the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)’s senior director for Western Hemisphere Operations. Prior to this assignment, Michael was FAS’s senior agricultural attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China, from 2017 to 2020. Ward joined FAS in 2007 and following assignments in the Office of Global Analysis and the Office of Scientific and Technical Affairs was granted entry into FAS’s Foreign Service in 2010. Ward’s first overseas tour was a year-long assignment as agricultural attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Following that assignment, he served at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 2012 to 2016. Prior to joining FAS permanently, Ward was a FAS intern at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. He is originally from Missouri and currently resides in Virginia with his wife and two children.