Meet our diverse roster of international experts, thought leaders, and practitioners. Discover the unique insights and experiences each guest brings to our discussions on global risk, security, and geopolitics.
Dr. Case Lackner joined the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP) as a Senior Fellow in September 2023. She was previously a Senior Nuclear Security Officer in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s Division of Nuclear Security, where she served as the Scientific Secretary for the Nuclear Security Guidance Committee and the Director General’s…
Ben is the Founder & CEO of Grassroot Communities, a Youth and Community worker, Educator, Environmentalist, and City Fellow. He’s passionate about supporting individuals, communities and organisations to be the changes they want to see. Grassroot Communities is an organisation that tailors and delivers school, youth and community work projects based on the wants and…
Alison Phipps is a UK-based scholar, writer and teacher working in the area of gender, with a specific focus on sexual violence. She’s currently Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University and honorary Professor in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York. Her latest book is called Me, Not You: the trouble with…
Dr. Aaron Winter (BA Hons. York; MA Warwick, DPhil Sussex) is Senior Lecturer in Sociology (Race and Anti-Racism), Deputy Doctoral Director and Director of the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) at Lancaster University. He previously taught at the Universities of Brighton, Sussex, Abertay and East London. His research is on the…
Ross Downing is an affiliate researcher of UK non-profit organisation Inform, and a registered subject matter expert with the EU knowledge hub on prevention of radicalisation. Ross specialises in extremist ideologies. He is co-editor of the book Germanic & Slavic Paganisms: security threats and resiliency with Kaarina Aitamurto, published January 2025 on Bloomsbury Academic Press.
Professor Dr. Kai-Uwe Schrogl is the President of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), the global association of space lawyers from more than 50 countries on all continents. He served from 2014 to 2016 as chair of the Legal Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) and was from…
Dr. Vahram Ter-Matevosyan is a leading scholar on the foreign and security policies of Turkey and the South Caucasus. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Bergen, with additional degrees from Lund University and the Institute of Oriental Studies in Armenia. A former Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley and Visiting Professor at Duke…
Professor Ian Linden formerly taught at the School of Oriental & African Studies in London and is a visiting Professor at St Mary’s University, Strawberry Hill, London. He worked for the Swedish Government in the 1980s liaising with the African National Congress in apartheid South Africa. A past director of the Catholic Institute for International Relations where…
Jason Costain is a fraud trouble-shooter and the founder of Javloc.com, a boutique fraud consultancy that provides specialist fraud advice. Jason has spent 30 years fighting fraud; building and leading successful banking fraud defence teams for some of the world’s biggest banks. Jason specialises in fraud defence systems, scam prevention, biometric authentication, big data and…
Anna Provan is the Peace and Security Programme Manager at the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP). She has a proven track record of research, writing, public engagement, and capacity-building on the gendered and humanitarian impacts of weapons use and transfer, as well as the wider implications of conflict and militarisation for the pursuit of…
