Speaker Biographies
Steve Leeper
Kazumi Mizumoto
Kazumi Mizumoto is the Vice President of the Hiroshima Peace Institute and is an expert in subjects surrounding international studies and politics, especially those involving nuclear disarmament and security. He is a professor for the Hiroshima Peace Institute and has worked for the Asahi Shimbun, giving him access to information and experience that makes his perspective very unique. He has written many articles and chapters for books and has done various conference presentations. For a full list of his accomplishments, visit http://www.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/modules/peace_e/content0025.html.
Peter Kuznick
The author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America and coeditor of Rethinking Cold War Culture, Professor Kuznick is currently writing a book about scientists’ opposition to the Vietnam War. As director of American University’s award winning Nuclear Studies Institute, he takes students on an annual study abroad trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He spearheaded the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy in response to the Smithsonian’s Enola Gay exhibit and co-founded the Nuclear Education Project. He writes often and lectures frequently about nuclear issues in general and the atomic bombings in particular. He has recently completed a historically based Hollywood screenplay and teaches the path-breaking course Oliver Stone’s America. He regularly provides commentary to the media on a broad range of subject and was selected Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, 2004-2007
Jacqueline Cabasso
Jacqueline Cabasso is the Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF), where she has worked since 1984. As WSLF's principal organizer, she is responsible for community education, media, networking, client coordination and fundraising. Ms. Cabasso frequently writes for and travels on behalf of WSLF, speaking at public hearings, conferences and rallies, and meeting with organizers throughout the world. She is a leading voice for nuclear weapons abolition, speaking at events across North America, Europe, and Asia.
In her home region, Ms. Cabasso chairs the Coordinating Committee of the Peoples NonViolent Response Coalition. At the national level, she convenes the Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security working group of United for Peace and Justice. Since 1994, Ms. Cabasso has represented WSLF at negotiating and review sessions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1995, she co-founded the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, which has grown to include more than 2000 organizations in over 90 countries, and she continues to serve on its international Coordinating Committee.
Ms. Cabasso is the co-author, with Susan Moon, of Risking Peace: Why We Sat in the Road (Open Books, 1985), an account of the huge 1983 nonviolent protest at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory and the subsequent mass trial conducted by WSLF. She has written and co-authored numerous articles for publications including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist and the journal Social Justice.
Kathleen Sullivan
Kathleen Sullivan is a disarmament educator, author, activist and producer who has been engaged in the nuclear issue for the last 22 years. She has worked with young people, community organizers, academics, government representatives and nuclear industry officials in many countries, including China, India, Japan, the UK and the US. Receiving her Ph.D.from Lancaster University, UK, her independent research comprises nuclear criticism, environmental ethics, feminist theory, social theory and science studies. Formerly the coordinator of the Nuclear Weapons Education and Action Project of Educators for Social Responsibility, a large scale youth programme designed to teach nuclear awareness to American high school students, Dr. Sullivan is a consultant to the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, writing disarmament curricula posted on the UN's Cyberschoolbus website. She recently produced her first film, an award-winning feature documentary entitled “The Last Atomic Bomb” (2005). She is currently establishing her own NGO, the Institute for Disarmament Education and Action (IDEA) which aims to provide lesson plans and interactive arts-based activities for young people to engage in working towards a world free of nuclear weapons.
Tilman Ruff
Dr. Tilman Ruff is an infectious diseases and public health physician, with particular involvement in the urgent public health imperative to abolish nuclear weapons, and in vaccines and immunisation. He is Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne.
Tilman chairs the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). He has been active in the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) since 1982 and is a past national President; and serves on the Board of IPPNW. He is an NGO Advisor to the Co-chairs, International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
Akira Kawasaki
Mr. Akira Kawasaki is an Executive Committee member of the Tokyo-based NGO Peace Boat, and a Co-Chair of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). In 2009-2010, he served as an NGO Advisor to Co-Chairs of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND). After the 11 March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, he initiated Peace Boat's activities to help children of Fukushima and organized Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World in January 2012 as the Conference Director. He lectures at Keisen University, Tokyo, and frequently writes in Japanese newspapers and journals on nuclear disarmament.
Hope May
Hope May is associate professor of philosophy at Central Michigan University, where she also serves as the Director of The Center for Professional and Personal Ethics. She received her Ph.D from Michigan State University in 2001. In 2008, she earned her Juris Doctorate degree from Michigan State University College of Law, graduating magna cum laude. Hope is a member of the Michigan Bar, and as a law student, won awards for her work in Legal Interpretation, International Law, First Amendment Law, and Law and Literature. In addition to Aristotle’s Ethics: Moral Development and Human Nature (Continuum, 2010), she is also the author of On Socrates(Wadsworth, 1999). Hope is the recipient of Central Michigan University’sExcellence in Teaching Award. She has envisioned and designed a number of student centered projects including Ethics Talk: A weekly internet radio show and Inspire Michigan!, an ideas competition to help students grow their ideas-for-good in Michigan. She is the President and Founder of The Center for Self-Concordance, a non-profit organization aimed at cultivating and nurturing self-concordance. She is married to Jeffrey Wigand, subject of the academy award nominated film, The Insider.
Kyoko Okumoto
Kyoko Okumoto holds a PhD in the Arts and Literature from Kobe College Graduate School of Letters in Japan and an MA in Peace Studies from Lancaster University in the UK. She is a Professor of Peace Studies, Conflict Transformation, and English Literature at Osaka Jogakuin University, a women's university in Osaka, Japan. Her research fields are: Conflict Transformation/Nonviolent Intervention, the Arts including Literature and Drama, and the relation between the two areas. She facilitates numerous peace training workshops at various places at all levels – from high school, to university to elderly communities. With NGOs such as Transcend-Japan, Transcend-International, Nonviolent Peaceforce-Japan, ACTION-Asia and ACTION-Global, and Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), Kyoko tries to explore ways to connect with other Asian – Northeast, Southeast and South Asian – communities and beyond to build more peaceful societies where people can have creative dialogues among themselves and with their neighbors and communities.