Madhu Kishwar is Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi; founder-president of Manushi Sangathan, an organization committed to strengthening democratic rights and women's rights in India; and founder editor of Manushi - A Journal About Women and Society, which has been published continuously since 1978. Her work on issues relating to "Laws, Liberty and Livelihoods" is aimed at evolving a pro-poor agenda of economic reforms in India. Kishwar, the author of numerous books and articles, has lectured extensively in India and abroad, and received many awards for her work. Her two most recent books are Zealous Reformers, Deadly Laws, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 2008; and Deepening Democracy: Challenges of Governance and Globalization in India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2005.

Ward Wilson is an award-winning scholar living in Trenton, NJ. He has written, studied and read extensively about nuclear weapons issues for more than twenty-five years. After training as a historian at the American University in Washington, DC with a special emphasis on philosophy, he was a Fellow at the Robert Kennedy Memorial Foundation in 1981 where he wrote about nuclear weapons issues. He has been published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dissent, the Chicago Tribune, Nonproliferation Review and International Security (among others). His work has been described as "some of the most original and exacting thinking being done about nuclear weapons today." In 2007 he published a ground-breaking study of the bombing of Hiroshima in International Security titled "The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima." The distinguished physicists Freeman Dyson has said that the article "effectively demolishes the generally-accepted myth that the atomic bombings brought World War II to an end." Wilson argues that "Much of what has been written about nuclear weapons is conceptually muddled. A great deal of work is necessary to intellectually recast the field." He advocates an approach rooted in the work of William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein that emphasizes examining the usefulness of nuclear weapons. "The only important question is ‘Are nuclear weapons useful?' If the answer is no, why keep them?" Wilson writes regularly at www.rethinkingnuclearweapons.org.

Barton Bernstein began his current position as Professor of History at Stanford University in 1965, after receiving his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1964. At Stanford, he has served as the director of the History Honors Program, the International Relations program, and the International Policy Studies program. Prof. Bernstein is a member of the American Historical Association, the Conference on Peace Research in History, and has served on the Editorial Advisory Committee for the Nuclear Age Series at Stanford University. He has been awarded numerous grants and research positions, including the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and the Lawrence-Livermore Grant. Prof. Bernstein was a CISAC fellow during the 1985-86 academic year.  Many of Prof. Bernstein's publications and articles have received national acclaim. He co-edited, with Don Kennedy, a series in Modern American History. A beloved professor and prolific author, Prof. Bernstein's research interests include U.S. foreign policy, modern U.S. political history, and science and technology policy. His talk "Why did Japan Surrender in World War II" addresses and challenges false or outdated conceptions of Japan's role in WWII.

Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment. He is a member of the Israeli Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Arms Control and Regional Security and a member of the board of directors of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Levite was the Principal Deputy Director General for Policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Levite also served as the deputy national security advisor for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In September 2000, Levite took a two year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and project co-leader of the "Discriminate Force" Project as the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Levite has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). He directs the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll of the US public, plays a central role in the BBC World Service Poll of global opinion and the polls of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and is the principal investigator of a major study of social support of anti-American terrorist groups in Islamic countries. He regularly appears in the US and international media, providing analysis of public opinion, and gives briefings to the US Congress, the State Department, NATO, the United Nations and the European Commission. His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Public Opinion Quarterly, Harpers, The Washington Post and other publications. His most recent book, co-authored with I.M. Destler, is Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism (Brookings). He is a faculty member of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Association of Public Opinion Research.

Jacob N. Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His primary research interests are the organizational aspects of terrorism, insurgency, and security policy. Shapiro's ongoing projects study the balance between secrecy and openness in counterterrorism, the causes of militant recruitment in Islamic countries, and the relationship between public goods provision and insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. His research has been published in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Military Operations Research, and a number of edited volumes. Shapiro is a Harmony Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy. Professor Shapiro served as a Naval Reserve officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Warfare Development Command. On active duty he served at Special Boat Team 20 and onboard the USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968). Ph.D. Political Science, M.A. Economics, Stanford University. B.A. Political Science, University of Michigan.

Lieutenant Colonel David Ottignon is a national security affairs fellow for 2008-2009 at the Hoover Institution. LTCOL Ottignon represents the U.S. Marine Corps. Ottignon graduated from Ithaca College and was commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1987 as a combat engineer. He participated in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, Operation Enduring Freedom in the Philippines, and most recently, in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007 to 2008. Other previous assignments include service in the U.S. Pacific Command, Assistant Professor of Military Science at the University of Rochester and Commanding Officer, 2d Combat Engineer Battalion, 2d Marine Division. He has earned his MBA from the Simon School, University of Rochester and a Masters in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College. His research at Hoover will focus on current and future national security issues. Ottignon is on the select list for promotion to Colonel.