ACONA Fellows 2024-2025

Tim is a Military Attaché and Foreign Area Officer serving with the U.S. Department of Defense. A defense strategist, diplomat, and dedicated public servant, Tim has over 12 years of experience leading security cooperation, counterterrorism, campaign planning, and interagency crisis response efforts across the Middle East and Europe. He holds a graduate degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, and was most recently published in The Diplomat, Strategy Bridge, and is a contributor to a forthcoming book on Chinese science fiction and international relations.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

James Gulliksen is an Assistant Counsel for International Law and Arms Control in the U.S. Department of the Navy. His work focuses on U.S. implementation of, and compliance with, arms control measures. He also advises in the area of U.S. nuclear cooperation with the United Kingdom. James holds a B.S., summa cum laude, from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he was Managing Editor of the Journal of National Security Law & Policy and was Co-Legal Director of Georgetown’s International Refugee Assistance Project.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Yasmin Hamdy is a Peace Scholar at the Boutros Boutros-Ghali Chair for Sustainable Peace. She is a Trainee at the UNODA’s Youth Leader Fund for a World without Nuclear Weapons Program. She has served as a Reviewer at the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker at Oxford University. Also, she was involved with the Institute for Economics & Peace as an Ambassador, and with UN Women as a Young Women Peacebuilder. Yasmin obtained a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy with distinction from Deraya University and pursued her postgraduate studies in Medicines Development at King's College London. She is the Co-Author of the Child-Friendly Texts of the UN Palermo Protocol and Paris Agreement. She is awarded as a UNHCR Young Champion for Refugees from The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

 

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Hao Nan is a Researcher and East Asia Affairs Program Lead at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, the UAE. He previously served at East Asian intergovernmental organizations such as the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (for China, Japan and Republic of Korea) in Seoul and the ASEAN-China Centre in Beijing. He was a Chinese youth delegate to the Youth 20 Summit (the G20 Summit’s official youth engagement group) and the Young Leaders' Summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), where he contributed to policy deliverables on digitalization, innovation, and economic diplomacy. Nan holds a Master's in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, under the Li Ka Shing Foundation Scholarship. He also has double bachelor's degrees in English (oriented to International Studies) and Diplomatic Studies.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Deniz Iskendarova is currently Associate Diversity Officer at the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), where she leads on improving diversity and mentoring of STEM women in the disarmament field. Until 2022, she was the coordinator of the Vienna Chapter of the International Gender Champions network, supporting gender equality efforts among ambassadors, heads of international organizations and civil society. A graduate of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, Deniz has also worked at UNIDO, the IAEA, the Honorary Consulate of Italy in Yekaterinburg and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs representation.

 

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

In 2023, he entered the MBA program at the Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI) with the aim of developing professional competencies and management in order to deeply study the interdisciplinary approach in the field of international relations. Member of the BSBI Student Council, author of articles and materials in the field of management and administration. Conducts active publication activities on nuclear safety and security issues in the European region. Applicant for the degree of candidate of political science at the Faculty of Global Processes of Moscow State University.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Jorge is a member of the Mexican Foreign Service. During 2011-2019, he served as Research and Communication Officer at the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL). During this period, he participated in the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and supported the implementation of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. From 2019 to 2022, Jorge was Legal and Project Officer at the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs - Lima Regional Centre (UNODA - UNLIREC), assisting Caribbean and Latin American States in implementing treaties on disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to September 2025

Qiyang Niu is a Project Manager and Head of Beijing Office at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Swiss organization focused on conflict mediation. Facilitating dialogues aimed at reducing inter-state tensions and escalation risks, Qiyang covers projects ranging from US-China crisis management, strategic stability between major powers, to confidence building in the South China Sea. Concurrently, he is pursuing a PhD at Tsinghua University and serves as a Predoctoral Fellow at the Tsinghua Center for International Security and Strategy, where his research focuses on arms control and non-proliferation. Qiyang holds an MA in European and Russian Studies from Yale University and a BA in Russian Literature from Nanjing University.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Dariya Pavlova is a foreign service officer at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She holds a master’s degree from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) with a major in International Security Studies and a postgraduate diploma in Strategic Studies from the Bulgarian National Defence College. Dariya’s professional interests are centered around bilateral and multilateral diplomacy in the field of arms control and non-proliferation. Apart from her policy-related background, she has research experience in the area of strategic stability and nuclear disarmament as an awardee of the 2020 OSCE-UNODA Scholarship for Peace and Security and participant in the 2023 CTBTO-CENESS Research Fellowship.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Takanobu Sato is WSD-Handa Research Fellow at Pacific Forum. His research interests include implications and challenges of emerging technology to arms control and non-proliferation. He has extensive experience in working on technology and industry cooperation between Japan and Europe, and provided policy analysis as an expert at the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation. Previously, he has worked on missile systems as defense sector consultant. He has been conducting research in PhD program at Waseda University. He also completed the nuclear policy training program at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Andrej Stefanovic works as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia. During 2023 and 2024, he was a desk officer at the Arms Control Department, and from 2019 to 2023 he was assigned to Serbia's Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, where he covered disarmament and arms control issues. In the course of this assignment, he completed many programs in arms control, including the EUNPDC Internship and the CTBTO/CENESS Research Fellowship.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Peter is an Assistant Superintendent of Police in The Gambia Police Force. He previously served as a Criminal Intelligence officer at the Police Headquarters, where he was responsible for countering organised crime and intelligence analysis. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of The Gambia and Master of Arts in Dispute Resolution at Independent College Dublin. He is also an International Visitor Leadership Fellow on Countering Violent Extremism-Community Strategies, United States of America.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Kateryna Unger is an Assistant at the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) Support Unit of the Conflict Prevention Centre, OSCE Secretariat. She has been working in various capacities at the OSCE since 2017 focusing on the politico-military and economic aspects of security, connectivity and energy security portfolios. Kateryna also managed development projects in healthcare and human security sectors in Ukraine as a Coordinator of the ODA of Japan to Ukraine, and worked as a researcher and technical translator in the private sector in Japan. Kateryna is a graduate of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna with a Master’s Degree in Advanced International Studies. She also holds a Master’s Degree in the Japanese Language and Translation from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and completed a two-year postgraduate PhD research in Japanese Linguistics at Hokkaido University.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Oceane is a Project Engineer consulting at Tihange Power Plant for Cegelec Belgium where she is involved in Unit 3 long term operations. She recently graduated from the dual degree on WMD Nonproliferation, Nuclear Policy and Global Security and Nonp-roliferation and Terrorrism Studies between the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations with her thesis focused on cyber threat assessment on nuclear facilities. She has previously served as an IAEA Youth Delegate for the Future at the 2024 International Conference on Nuclear Security, a mentee under the CTBTO mentorship program, an IAEA Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow, and an intern at the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL). She also completed cyber and physics trainings and certifications at the Tel Aviv University, the Czech Technical University and the Hague Security Delta.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

Austin Wright is currently the Policy Advisor for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Defense Programs In his role, Austin leverages his substantial international experience and technical knowledge to advise leadership and provide recommendations on nuclear security policies proposed by the National Security Council. Previously, Austin supported the Nuclear Weapons Council, coordinated strategic messaging for the newly announced B61-13 gravity bomb, and aided in the development of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. Austin earned his MA in International Security from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (SciencesPo), and his MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics in 2019. His work on nuclear issues has been highlighted in Foreign Policy Magazine, as well as the E.U. Nonproliferation and Disarmament Consortium and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Originally from Michigan, Austin now resides in the Washington, D.C. area.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025

MA Candidate in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies by Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, current fellow of Marie Sklodowska-Curie IAEA Program, Member of the Young Deep Cuts Commission, semi-finalist of Cyber 9/12 Competition by the Atlantic Council and GCSP 2024, member-at-large of MIIS-INMM Student Chapter. Previously worked as a research assistant in Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in PIR Center as a coordinator of “Oral History of Nuclear Nonproliferation” project and Junior Research Fellow of “Nuclear Nonproliferation and Russia” Program. Recipient of Evstafiev Award for the best research paper in the field of international security (2023). Was member of PIR Center NGO delegation to the X NPT Review Conference, participated in a number of conferences organized by PIR Center, MGIMO, GCSP, CNS, Carnegie Endowment.

​

ACONA Fellowship Term: July 2024 to June 2025