Atomic Reporters, the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP), the Stanley Foundation, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies will host their second in a planned series of workshops for journalists from the Middle East 3– 5 December 2014. Nuclear Safety, Security and WMD Non-proliferation will cover in detail nuclear security and safety challenges, nuclear energy development in the Middle East, WMD non-proliferation, and other security issues in the region.

Atomic Reporters and its associates have prepared a diverse range of panels that will be moderated by technical and policy experts, and senior journalists. Below is a list of the workshop’s speakers:

Peter Rickwood is the founder and executive director of Atomic Reporters. He worked as a journalist for most of his life before joining the IAEA in 2001 where he was a press officer until 2009 . He subsequently acted as information advisor to the Preparatory Commission for the CTBTO and UNSCEAR. In 2012 he founded Atomic Reporters

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Elena Sokova is the Executive Director of the VCDNP and previously served as Assistant Director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Elena also co-authored “Nuclear Power Broker,” for The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2007.

 

 

Chen Kane is a senior research associate at CNS, a non-resident research associate Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School, an advisor to the National Nuclear Security Administration, and an adjunct professor with the National Defense University. She has written extensively on nuclear in the Middle East.

 

 

Anya Loukianova is a program officer for the Stanley Foundation’s Nuclear Material Security program. Her work deals with policies related to the security and elimination of nuclear weapons-usable material and high-risk radiological sources.

 

 

Ambassador Hamad Alkaabi has worked as the Permanent Representative of the UAE to the IAEA since 2008, representing his country’s commitments to peaceful uses and nonproliferation. He has personally been involved in all key milestones of the UAE nuclear energy programme
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Ambassador Wael Al-Assad is currently the Representative of the Secretary General for Disarmament and Regional Security and the Director of Disarmament. He is an expert on nuclear power in the Middle East, nonproliferation and Iran’s nuclear program.

 

 

A senior fellow with the Brookings Institute Foreign Policy Program, Robert Einhorn previously served as U.S. Department of State special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control. Between 2001 and 2009, Einhorn was a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
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 Ayhan Evrensel is a communications coordinator to the Department of Nuclear Energy at the IAEA, having been a Press and Public Information Officer there prior. He has also worked at Turkey’s NTV, the OSCE and the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation.

 

 

Aybars Gurpinar is an independent nuclear consultant and previously worked at the IAEA for 21 years. His final posting was Acting Director of the agency’s  Nuclear Installation Safety division. Over the years, Aybars has published three books and over 150 papers.

 

 

Roger Howsley is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS). Roger has over 30 years experience relating to nuclear nonproliferation and security across the nuclear fuel cycle, having worked with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, the IAEA, Euratom and various security organisations.

 

 

Carolyn Mac Kenzie is the Radiation Safety Officer at University of California Berkeley’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

 

 

Khammar Mrabit is the current director of the IAEA’s  Division of Nuclear Security and a veteran physicist with some 30 years experience in radiation and nuclear safety and nuclear security
. He holds a Ph.D in nuclear physics from the University of Strasbourg in France.

 

 

A former director of the IAEA’s programme on Capacity Building and Nuclear Knowledge Maintenance for Sustainable Energy Development, Hans Holger Rogner is currently a Senior Research Scholar at  the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

 

 

Thomas Shea is the founder and owner TomSheaNuclear Consulting Services and served as Director of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
. Previously, he served at the IAEA for 24 years, leading activities involving safeguards policy and verification.

 

 

Israel’s Ambassador to the IAEA, Merav Zafari-Odiz previously served as a senior official at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). She assumed her current role in late 2013.