A project from the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, the Endowed Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at the University of New Mexico, and UNM’s Religious Studies Program
Saturday, September 7, 2024
University of New Mexico
Out of Town Participants (alphabetized):
Jay Coghlan
Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico
Jay Coghlan is the Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a nonprofit organization that monitors the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex. He has been instrumental in opposing radioactive incineration at Los Alamos and has successfully engaged in Clean Air Act, Freedom of Information Act, and National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Department of Energy.
In 2006, Jay prompted an independent study that found plutonium pits, the fissile triggers of nuclear weapons, have a lifespan of at least a century. This finding led to congressional rejections of new-design nuclear weapons and their production. Currently, he is actively opposing the U.S. government’s latest efforts to expand plutonium pit production, a crucial step in resuming U.S. industrial production of nuclear weapons.
Jay has also served as a nuclear disarmament consultant to the Santa Fe Archdiocese for the past four years. An avid skier and climber, he has been a dedicated Zen practitioner for 50 years.
Tina Cordova
Co-founder, Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium
Tina Cordova, a seventh-generation native New Mexican, was born and raised in the small town of Tularosa in south-central New Mexico. In 2005, she co-founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) with the late Fred Tyler. TBDC’s mission is to highlight the negative health effects experienced by the unsuspecting and uncompensated victims of the first nuclear blast on earth at the Trinity site in 1945. Their ultimate goal is to pass the amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act so that health care coverage and partial restitution are provided to the people of New Mexico who have suffered from radiation overexposure since 1945.
Ms. Cordova is a cancer survivor, diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 39. She is the fourth generation in her family to have cancer since 1945, with five generations affected, including a niece diagnosed at 23. Ms. Cordova earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from New Mexico Highlands University, majoring in Biology and minoring in Chemistry.
She is also the Co-owner and President of Queston Roofing and Construction, which she founded in 1990 with her partner Russ Steward.
Thomas Countryman
Chairman of the Board, Arms Control Association & former Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security
Thomas Countryman was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Arms Control Association in October 2017. The ACA, a nonpartisan NGO, specializes in analyzing critical national security issues and provides guidance to the executive branch, Congress, and the public on decisions that enhance global security and reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Prior to his role at ACA, Countryman retired from the Senior Foreign Service in January 2017 after a distinguished 35-year career. During his tenure, he served simultaneously as acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, and as Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation, a position he held since September 2011. In this capacity, the ISN Bureau led U.S. efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
Maryann Cusimano Love, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of International Relations, The Catholic University of America
Maryann Cusimano Love is a tenured Associate Professor of International Relations in the Politics Department at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She serves as a consultant to the Holy See Mission at the United Nations, where she participated in negotiations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons. Additionally, she is a board member of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association and a founding board member of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network.
Dr. Love advises the U.S. Catholic Bishops on international affairs, is part of Pope Francis’ New Technologies for Peace task force, and serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for Women, Faith, and Leadership. She is also involved in environmental protection efforts for the Chesapeake Bay. Previously, she was an Ethics Fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy, a fellow at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and served on the Department of State’s Core Group on Religion and Foreign Policy. Her board memberships have included Jesuit Refugee Services, the International Society of Political Psychology, and Women in International Security. She also founded the Political Psychology section of the American Political Science Association. Publications include Global Issues; Holy See Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons; Beyond Sovereignty; and Beyond the Bomb: Just Peace and Nuclear Weapons.
A New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Love earned her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She lives on the Chesapeake Bay outside of Washington, D.C., with her husband and their three children.
Michael C. Desch, Ph.D.
Packey J. Dee Professor of International Relations, University of Notre Dame
Michael C. Desch is the Packey J. Dee Professor of International Relations at the University of Notre Dame and the Brian and Jeannelle Brady Family Director of the Notre Dame International Security Center. He has served two terms as chair of the Department of Political Science. Dr. Desch was the founding Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs and the inaugural holder of the Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-Making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University from 2004 to 2008.
From 1993 to 1998, Dr. Desch was the Assistant Director and Senior Research Associate at the Olin Institute. He also spent two years as a John M. Olin Post-doctoral Fellow in National Security at Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, among other positions. He has worked on the staff of a U.S. Senator, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, and in the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service.
His publications include When the Third World Matters: Latin America and U.S. Grand Strategy, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment, Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism, and Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security. He also edited Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena: Professors or Pundits?
Dr. Desch earned his B.A. (with honors) in Political Science from Marquette University and his A.M. in International Relations and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.
Christopher Ford, Ph.D.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation
Christopher Ford is Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University’s Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies, a Visiting Fellow with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with Oxford University’s Pharos Foundation. In prior government service, he most recently served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, also performing the duties of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. Dr. Ford is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard, earned his doctorate at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and attended the Yale Law School. He is the author of two books on China, a history of U.S. Navy operational intelligence, and numerous articles and papers.
Rose Gottemoeller
Former Deputy Secretary of NATO & former U.S. Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security
Rose Gottemoeller is a Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Before joining Stanford, she served as Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she played a key role in adapting NATO to new security challenges in Europe and combating terrorism. Prior to her NATO tenure, Gottemoeller was the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising on arms control, nonproliferation, and political-military affairs. Notably, as Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.
Before her government service, Gottemoeller was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, holding joint appointments in the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She directed the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008 and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program.
At Stanford, Gottemoeller teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy Program and the CISAC Honors Program. She also contributes to policy research and outreach activities, and organizes workshops, seminars, and events on topics such as nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation, and nonproliferation.
Siegfried S. Hecker, Ph.D.
Former Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Siegfried Hecker spent 34 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, serving as its director from 1986 to 1997. He then joined Stanford University, where he co-directed the Center for International Security and Cooperation for six years. Currently, Dr. Hecker is a part-time professor of practice at Texas A&M University and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Throughout his career, Dr. Hecker has focused on nuclear issues and has visited every country with declared nuclear weapons programs, including North Korea. He is the editor of Doomed to Cooperate, a two-volume work documenting the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory cooperation, and Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea’s Nuclear Program, co-authored with Elliot Serbin.
Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of numerous professional societies. His accolades include the prestigious Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, which he received in 2009.
Bryan Hehir, Ph.D.
Secretary for Health and Social Services, Archdiocese of Boston
Bryan Hehir is a member of the Academic Advisory Council at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, and previously served as the Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. From 1992-2001, he taught on the Harvard Divinity School faculty, serving as Interim Dean and Dean of Faculty. He continues now to serve as the Secretary for Health and Social Services at the Archdiocese of Boston and on the faculty of St. John’s Seminary and Pope John Seminary. Fr. Hehir served on the faculty of Georgetown University from 1984-1992 and at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he was the staff head of the consultations that culminated in The Challenge of Peace (1986), the American bishops’ major statement on nuclear weapons.
His publications include: The Moral Measurement of War: A Tradition of Continuity and Change; Military Intervention and National Sovereignty; Strategic Logic and the Ethics of Killing; Kosovo: A War of Values and the Values of War; Religion, Realism and Just Intervention; Catholicism and Democracy: Conflict, Change, and Collaboration; Papal Foreign Policy; and The Old Church and the New Europe.
Ira Helfand, M.D.
Steering Group, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Ira Helfand is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for “its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
Dr. Helfand is the former President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a founding partner of ICAN, which itself was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He is also Co-founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. In 2023, he received the Gandhi King Ikeda Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.
He has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and the World Medical Journal on the medial consequences of nuclear war and has lectured across the globe about nuclear war. Dr. Helfand was educated at Harvard College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and recently retired as staff physician at Family Care Medical Center. He lives with his wife, Deborah Smith, a medical oncologist, in Leeds, Mass., and has two grown sons and two grandchildren.
Raymond J. Juzaitis, Ph.D.
Former Associate Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory & Livermore National Laboratory
Raymond Juzaitis is a Nuclear Engineer with over 40 years of experience in nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, intelligence, counterterrorism, homeland security, and related R&D programs. His early focus on computational physics led to a diverse technical career encompassing nuclear weapons design, development, testing, and evaluation. Dr. Juzaitis has held senior advisory roles for the U.S. Government, including at the Pentagon. In the 1990s, he spearheaded the transition at Los Alamos National Laboratory of the technical culture of nuclear weapons design from a nuclear testing-based paradigm to a simulation-based paradigm.
Dr. Juzaitis has served in senior management at both major U.S. nuclear weapon physics laboratories. He was the Associate Director for Weapons Physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Associate Director for Non-Proliferation, Homeland, and International Security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
After retiring from the University of California, he became the Professor and Department Head of the Texas A&M Nuclear Engineering Department, overseeing the largest such department in the U.S. From 2012 to 2015, he was the President/CEO of National Security Technologies, LLC, managing the Nevada National Security Site.
Dr. Juzaitis’s ongoing research and consulting focus on the proliferation risk and nuclear weapons latency in global nuclear energy capabilities. He recently published Redemption of Prometheus: Creating a Sustainable Nuclear Enterprise for the 21st Century with the American Nuclear Society.
Dr. Juzaitis earned a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, and an M.E. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Virginia. He has been married to Helen for 48 years and has two grown children living in Washington, D.C.
Hans Kristensen
Director, Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists
Hans Kristensen is Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., a nuclear transparency project that researches and documents the status and operations of nuclear forces of the nine nuclear-armed states. He is co-author of the bi-monthly FAS Nuclear Notebook column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the World Nuclear Forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook, both of which are some the most widely used reference materials on the status of the world’s nuclear arsenals.
Richard Love, Ph.D.
Professor, National Defense University
Richard A. Love is a Professor at the National Defense University, where he focuses on strategy, deterrence, disruptive technologies, and law. Previously, he was Professor of Strategy at the United States Army War College, responsible for national security strategy, the law of armed conflict, and irregular warfare. He also served as the Associate Director and Professor of Irregular Warfare at the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, working on stabilization, rule of law, and economic and infrastructure development with the Department of State, Department of Defense, and U.S. allies and partners.
Dr. Love also served as professor and senior research fellow at NDU’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and completed assignments on detail to the National Security Council Staff and DoD’s Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. Those assignments included leading efforts during Operation Tomodachi and the Libyan chemical demilitarization efforts. He facilitated bilateral and multilateral engagements at the request of the Department of Defense and other interagency partners with countries such as Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Love holds a Ph.D. in International Relations, an LLM in International Law, and a Juris Doctor in Corporate and Security Law. He is licensed to practice law in Virginia and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Catholic University.
Thomas “Thom” Mason, Ph.D.
Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Thom Mason became the 12th Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and President of Triad National Security, LLC, in November 2018.
For the past 30 years, Dr. Mason has been involved in the design and construction of scientific instrumentation and facilities and the application of nuclear, computing, and materials sciences to solve important challenges in energy and national security. Most recently Thom was the Senior Vice President for Global Laboratory Operations at Battelle where he had responsibility for governance and strategy across the six National Laboratories that Battelle manages or co‐manages. Prior to joining Battelle, Dr. Mason worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for 19 years, including 10 years as the laboratory director. Before becoming laboratory director, he was Associate Laboratory Director for Neutron Sciences and Director of the Experimental Facilities division.
Dr. Mason was active in the community during his time in Oak Ridge, serving as chair of the Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation and of Innovation Valley, the Knoxville‐Oak Ridge area regional economic development organization. Previously, he was a faculty member in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mason has also worked as a senior scientist at Risø National Laboratory and a postdoctoral researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from McMaster University and a B.Sc. in Physics from Dalhousie University.
Cardinal Robert McElroy
Bishop of San Diego & Member, Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
Robert W. McElroy was born in San Francisco on February 5, 1954, earned his undergraduate education at Harvard, and completed a master’s degree in American History from Stanford. He was ordained a priest in l980 and served has Parochial Vicar in two parishes in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He earned a doctorate in moral theology from the Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate in political science from Stanford in l989. In the following years he served the Archdiocese of San Francisco as Vicar General and for 15 years as pastor of St. Gregory the Great Parish in San Mateo. Pope Benedict in 2010 appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco. In 2015, Pope Francis appointed him bishop of San Diego and elevated him to Cardinal on August 27, 2022.
Cardinal McElroy has written two books: The Search for an American Public Theology and Morality and American Foreign Policy. In addition, he has written articles on theology and public policy for a variety of journals.
Cardinal McElroy is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
Hirokazu Miyazaki, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology, Northwestern University
Hirokazu Miyazaki is Professor of Anthropology and the Kay Davis Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Dr. Miyazaki has written extensively on exchange, hope, and peace, and his current research, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, focuses on the role of U.S. local government leaders, civic organizations, and religious organizations, including the Catholic Church, in the politics of nuclear weapons. He is completing a book on the peacebuilding efforts of Bishop (later Archbishop) Paul Aijiro Yamaguchi of Nagasaki during World War II and the postwar reconstruction period. Dr. Miyazaki also serves as a Peace Correspondent for the City of Nagasaki.
Terri Nelson
Director, Director of Integral Human Development, Archdiocese of Seattle
Terri Nelson is the Director of Integral Human Development at the Archdiocese of Seattle. In this role, she has responsibility for all Peace and Justice events and activities of the archdiocese in Western Washington, along with oversight of the Department of Pastoral Care and Outreach. Integral Human Development promotes the good of every person and the whole person; it is cultural, economic, political, social, and spiritual. Areas of particular focus and interest for Terri are Care for Creation, Nuclear Peace, Human Dignity, and Peaceful/Just Societies. Terri has spent more than 30 years working in both parish and diocesan ministry. She and her husband, Jim, have enjoyed 40 years of marriage, and have four adult daughters. She enjoys gardening, walking and spending time with their four grandchildren.
James O’Sullivan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Saint Joseph’s University
James P. O’Sullivan is an Associate Professor of Social Ethics and is on the boards of the Faith Justice Institute, Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, and the Institute for Clinical Bioethics at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia. He holds a B.A. in history and philosophy from the Honors College of the University of Missouri, an M.T.S. in systematic and moral theology from the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, and a Ph.D. in ethics from Boston College, with a dissertation on development and human rights under the direction of David Hollenbach, S.J. Dr. O’Sullivan’s areas of scholarly interest include social and economic justice, human rights, sustainable human development, integral disarmament, and the relationship between Catholic Social Thought, secular ethics, and public policy in a pluralistic world.
Gerard Powers
Director, Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame
Since 2004, Gerard Powers has been director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He also coordinates the Catholic Peacebuilding Network and its Project on Revitalizing Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament. He has worked on ethics and nuclear policy since 1987.
From 1998-2004, he was director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and from 1987-1998 was a policy advisor in that office. He is co-editor (with Montevecchio) of Catholic Peacebuilding and Extractives: Integral Peace, Development, and Ecology (2022), (with Schreiter & Appleby) Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics and Praxis (2010), and (with Philpott) of Strategies of Peace (2010).
Matthew Sharp, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Multilateral and Nuclear Affairs, U.S. State Department Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability
Matthew Sharp is the Director of the Office of Multilateral and Nuclear Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS). His team coordinates U.S. participation in a number of multilateral venues with a focus on nuclear disarmament and related issues, to include the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, among others. Dr. Sharp previously served as the Director for Iran Nuclear Issues as a member of President Biden’s National Security Council staff. From 2016-2022, Matthew was the Deputy Counselor for IAEA Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Managing the Atom Program and holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago.
Most Rev. Joseph Mitsuaki Takami
Archbishop Emeritus of Nagasaki
Joseph Mitsuaki Takami, PSS, was born in Nagasaki on March 21, 1946 and served as Archbishop of Nagasaki from 2003 to 2022. He also served as President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan from 2016 to 2022. He earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Keio University in Tokyo in 1968. He studied philosophy and theology at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Fukuoka and was ordained a priest in 1972. He received his Licentiate in Dogmatic Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1976 and his Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 1984. He taught at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Fukuoka from 1976 to 2003 and served as Rector there from 1991 to 1997. He was appointed and ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Nagasaki in 2002. Archbishop Emeritus Takami is an in utero atomic bomb survivor and lost several members of his extended family in the bombing.
Masao Tomonaga, M.D., Ph.D.
Vice President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Born in Nagasaki City in 1943, Masao Tomonaga survived the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945 at 2.5 km from Ground Zero. After graduating from Nagasaki University School of Medicine in 1968, he became an internist and in 1985 a professor of hematology, specializing in medical care for survivors. Tomonaga continued research on radiation-induced malignant disorders, mainly leukemia. After retiring from medical school, he was appointed Director of Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital until 2012, then became Director of Atomic Bomb Survivors Nursing Home, a position he currently holds. He was also appointed in 2019 the President of Nagasaki Prefectural Hibakusha Association. He is now Vice President of IPPNW in Japan.
Most Rev. John C. Wester
Archbishop of Sante Fe
John C. Wester, the twelfth Archbishop of Santa Fe, visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in September 2017. He described it as a somber, sobering experience as he realized “on August 6, 1945, humanity crossed the line into the darkness of the nuclear age.” Historically, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has been part of a peace initiative, one that would help make sure these weapons would never be used again. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a special role to play in advocating for nuclear disarmament given the presence of the Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons laboratories and the nation’s largest repository of nuclear weapons at the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM. He feels we need to encourage life-affirming jobs for New Mexicans in cleanup, nonproliferation programs, and addressing climate change.
Archbishop Wester says: “It is the duty of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the birthplace of nuclear weapons, to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons while working toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.”
IACS and Albuquerque Participants (alphabetized):
Anne Avellone, LMSW, M.Div.
Director, Office of Social Justice and Respect Life, Archdiocese of Santa Fe
With more than 35 years of experience working in professional ministry, Ms. Anne (Annie) Avellone, LMSW, M.Div., is the Director for the Office of Social Justice and Respect Life at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. She oversees the work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Relief Services for the Archdiocese and educates others about Catholic social teaching, advocacy for justice, and the social mission of the Church. She is part of the writing team that consulted with Most Rev. John C. Wester, Archbishop of Sante Fe, on his pastoral letter, Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament. She earned her M.Div. from Loyola University Chicago and her master’s in Social Work from New Mexico Highlands University. She frequently supervises social work practicums for students.
Becky King Cerling, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC
Becky King Cerling serves as executive director of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC. She earned an M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in European Medieval History and the History of Christianity from the University of Southern California. Her research centers on the role of children in medieval monasticism.
Dr. Cerling is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and has also served as an affiliate faculty member in Church History at Fuller Seminary. She and her husband, Lee, have enjoyed 31 years of marriage and have two young adult children.
Myrriah Gómez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Honors College, University of New Mexico
Myrriah Gómez is a nuevomexicana from the Pojoaque Valley in northern New Mexico. She is the award-winning author of Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos, which examines the effects of settler colonialism and the nuclear industrial complex on nuevomexicanos. She has been a board member for Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety since 2017. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico.
Kathleen Holscher, Ph.D.
Endowed Chair of Roman Catholic Studies, Professor, Religious Studies and American Studies, University of New Mexico
Kathleen Holscher is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, holding the Endowed Chair in Roman Catholic Studies at the University of New Mexico. Her research, primarily historical, focuses on Catholicism in the U.S. during the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular attention to its intersections with race, empire, and U.S. settler colonialism.
Dr. Holscher explores these themes through the lens of religion and law. Her first book, Religious Lessons: Catholic Sisters, Public Education and the Law in Midcentury New Mexico, examines church-state relations. Her recent work addresses Catholic clerical sexual abuse within the context of U.S. “Indian missions,” contributing to both academic and popular publications. She has published in Religion and US Empire: Critical New Histories, the National Catholic Reporter and The Revealer.
Her research extends to religious boarding schools and residential facilities for Native youth, and she recently co-directed an NEH-SHARP grant on Catholic boarding school archives and accessibility. Currently, Dr. Holscher is co-writing a book on Catholic horror, investigating its presence in U.S. film, literature, and Catholic history.
At the University of New Mexico, she teaches courses on U.S. Catholic history, Catholic saints, religion in New Mexico, secularism, and religion and social movements. Dr. Holscher holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Amir Mohagheghi, Ph.D.
Managing Director of the Cooperative Monitoring Center and Senior Scientist, Sandia National Laboratories
As Managing Director of the Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) at Sandia National Laboratories, Amir Mohagheghi leads efforts to facilitate scientific engagement for global security in the 21st century.
In his role as a Senior Scientist in the Center for Global Security and Cooperation (CGSC) at Sandia, Dr. Mohagheghi performs research, analysis, evaluation, and implementation of technology, policy, and global engagements in support of the U.S. government’s national security objectives to promote global peace and stability. Dr. Mohagheghi and the experts at CGSC leverage the deep expertise across Sandia and partner with internationally recognized scholars from academia, think tanks, and national laboratories to research and generate solutions to today’s complex global security challenges.
He earned a Ph.D. in experimental high energy atomic physics from the University of New Mexico (UNM), with dissertation research conducted at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative. He has authored or contributed to more than 100 scientific and policy publications and reports. Dr. Mohagheghi also serves as an adjunct professor at the UNM, where he has taught graduate courses on the interaction of radiation with matter and an interdisciplinary course on WMD nonproliferation science and policy as well as helped to establish a world-class nuclear security program at UNM.
Maureen Pecht King
Trustee, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC
Maureen Pecht King serves on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC. She is the former chair of the Museum Trustee Association and the current chair of the Board of Trustees of Mingei International Museum. Ms. King is also a board member of the Scripps Mercy Hospital Foundation, which she chaired for five years. She played a pivotal role in the Scripps Mercy Critical Care Campaign and led a $5 million capital campaign to expand the Cancer Center at Scripps Mercy Hospital. Currently, she is a member of the Scripps Capital Campaign Cabinet.
Ms. King is vice chair of the Kraemer Endowment Foundation, which supports the St. Madeleine Sophie Center for mentally disabled adults, and co-chaired the Center’s capital campaign. She has served as a consultant in fundraising and management for numerous non-profits and has worked with educational, cultural, and human service institutions as a speaker and seminar facilitator.
A fifth-generation Californian, Ms. King graduated cum laude from the University of San Diego College for Women with a B.A. and has taught speech and drama at the secondary school level. She and her husband, Charles, have four adult children, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Ms. King has generously provided the major funding for the “Forum on Nuclear Strategy: Disarmament & Deterrence in a Dangerous World.”
Regis Pecos
Former Governor of Cochiti Pueblo and Co-Founder/Co-Director of the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute
Regis Pecos is the former Governor of Cochiti Pueblo and served on the Traditional Council for 35 years. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his graduate degree from UC Berkeley. He is also a graduate of the Senior Government Executive Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Regis was the longest serving Chief Executive of the New Mexico Office of Indian Affairs, a position he held for 16 years. The late President Wendel Chino, longtime Chair of the New Mexico Commission on Indian Affairs, referred to him as the chief architect of building State/Government relations. He served as the Chief of Staff to the late Speaker of the House Representative Ben Lujan for 12 years.
Regis has also served as the Chief of Staff and the Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs to former Representative Rick Miera in the Office of the Majority Floor Leader. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Princeton University and has taught each summer for the last 14 years in the Junior Policy Institute at the university’s School of Public and International Affairs. He is the Chair of the Board of Governors for the Honoring Nations Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University and has also been an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of New Mexico. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Leadership Institute, an Indigenous Think Tank based in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the campus of the Santa Fe Indian School.
Dan Wolne, Ph.D.
Director, Religion Studies Program, University of New Mexico
Dan Wolne has been a faculty member in the Religious Studies Program at the University of New Mexico for over two decades, and currently serves as the program’s director. He earned his Ph.D. from UNM’s Philosophy Department in 1997, with an emphasis in non-Western and comparative Philosophy. Dr. Wolne teaches a diverse range of courses, from introductory sections of Living World Religions to upper-division classes. These include the capstone course in Religious Studies titled “Theories of Religion,” a course on contemporary Atheism, Early Daoism, Religion and the Body, and a newly developed online course in comparative mysticism.
His current scholarly interests focus on exploring the religious dimensions of Wokeism and Social Justice movements, advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning within Religious Studies, investigating the Cognitive Science of Religion (including Evolutionary Psychology and its impact on religious belief and behavior), and studying the New Atheist movement.
Richard L. Wood, Ph.D.
President, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC
Rich Wood is President of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC. He taught for 27 years as a Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico, where he served as the founding director of the Southwest Institute on Religion, Culture, and Society. He also served as the university’s interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, and the senior vice provost for academic mission. In these positions, he oversaw the university’s academic priorities and led initiatives to advance equity and academic excellence.
Dr. Wood’s research and writing focus on the areas of religion, faith-based community organizing and global sociology. He is the author of two award-winning books, both published by The University of Chicago Press: A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy and Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America. He has written dozens of articles for leading peer-reviewed academic journals, co-edits the Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion, and Politics book series, and served as the principal investigator on four major federally-funded research projects.
Dr. Wood was raised in Los Alamos, NM; earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley; a master’s degree in theology from the Graduate Theological Union and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of California, Davis.