About the speakers

Rose Gottemoeller is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a senior fellow at CGSR. She served as deputy secretary general of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO's adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, Ms Gottemoeller served for nearly five years as the Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the secretary of state on arms control, non-proliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Non-proliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre from 2006 to 2008.

In her newly published memoirs, “Negotiating the New START Treaty”, Ms Gottemoeller, the first woman to lead a major nuclear arms negotiation, delivers an invaluable insider’s account of the negotiations that took place between the US and Russian delegations in Geneva in 2009 and 2010. The book also examines the crucially important discussions about the treaty between US President Barack Obama and the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, and it describes the tough negotiations Ms Gottemoeller and her team went through to gain the support of the Senate for the treaty.

The book is currently available as an e-book and for hard copy pre-orders from its US-based publisher, Cambria Press. Hard copies are expected to dispatch before the end of May 2021.

Dr Patricia Lewis leads the International Security programme at Chatham House. Previously she served as deputy director and scientist-in-residence at the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies at the former Monterey Institute of International Studies; director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research; and director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre in London. She was on Hans Blix’s 2004–06 WMD Commission; the 2010–11 advisory panel on the future priorities of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; and was an adviser to the 2008–10 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. She received the American Physical Society’s 2009 Joseph A Burton Forum Award for ‘outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society’. She has a PhD in Nuclear Physics from Birmingham University and graduated in Physics from Manchester University.

H.E. Ambassador Helena Nolan has been serving as Irish Ambassador to Belgium and the NATO Partnership for Peace Liaison Office since August 2017. 

Prior to her appointment to this role, Ambassador Nolan served as Director for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.