(In Alphabetical Order)

Brigadier General (Ret.) Ruddy Arias Rodríguez serves as Deputy Minister for Strategy and Planning at Colombia’s Ministry of National Defense, where he leads initiatives focused on strengthening institutional capabilities and advancing strategic planning across the defense sector. He holds an MBA from INALDE Business School and is a graduate of its Senior Executive Management Program (PADE). He also holds Masters degrees in Security and Defense and in Cybersecurity and Cyber Defense from the Escuela Superior de Guerra. His academic background further includes studies in strategic leadership and organizational management, as well as a specialization in government contracting from the Escuela Superior de Administración Pública (ESAP). With more than 34 years of experience in the defense sector, Brigadier General Arias has served in positions involving strategic planning, military aviation, intelligence, air intelligence, and electronic warfare. He is a qualified staff officer and a graduate of the Advanced Military Studies Course. He also completed U.S. Army training in aviation administration and served as a helicopter pilot in the Colombian National Army. Throughout his career, he has held leadership positions at both the operational and strategic levels, contributing to the strengthening and modernization of institutional capabilities across Colombia’s defense sector.
 

Dr. Lisa Aronsson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council where she is affiliated with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Prior to joining INSS, Dr. Aronsson worked as an analyst for the Congressional Research Service. She worked as a Research Fellow and Program Head at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London from 2008 to 2014. At RUSI she led the Institute’s research on U.S. defense and security policy, U.K.-U.S. cooperation, and transatlantic relations. Prior to joining RUSI, she completed a Ph.D. in International Relations and a Master's in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She began her career as a newsroom assistant at the Associated Press Bureau in Rome after completing her B.A. at Wellesley College.

Rear Admiral (Ret.) Matthew T. Bell, Jr is former Commander of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District, Juneau, Alaska. He joined the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies as Dean on 25 April 2022. He is responsible for the executive education program designed to protect the U.S. homeland, maintain a favorable balance of power in the region, and promote a shared approach to regional security and respect for the existing rules-based order. His thirty-six-year Coast Guard career includes numerous operational tours in Alaska, including two command afloat assignments in Kodiak and, most recently, as Commander, 17th Coast Guard District, in Juneau, where he was responsible for Coast Guard operations throughout Alaska, the North Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. Dean Bell is a 1984 graduate of Northern Arizona University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. He entered the Coast Guard in 1985 through Recruit Training Center Cape May and received his commission in 1986 upon graduation from Officer Candidate School. He holds a Master of Science in Chemistry awarded by Northern Arizona University in 1993 and is a graduate of Harvard University and the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative.

Ambassador Roxanne Cabral began her role as the Senior Vice President at the National Defense University on April 19, 2023. She most recently served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands from February 2020 to March 2023. Prior to this, she served as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy Panama since March 2018. She arrived in Panama as Deputy Chief of Mission in August 2017. She has more than 25 years of experience as a U.S. diplomat with several high-impact assignments in Washington and abroad. Her most recent Washington, D.C., assignment was as the Director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Resources for the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2015-2017, where she led the development of public diplomacy policy and management of global public diplomacy resources to advance key national security objectives. She held the 2013-14 Department of State Senior Fellowship at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank The Atlantic Council, during which time she co-authored a white paper titled "Diplomacy for a Diffuse World." She was the Public Affairs Section Chief at the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, China, from 2010-2013. Previous overseas assignments include Taiwan, Albania, Mexico City, and Ukraine. She also served as the public diplomacy advisor in the Department of State’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, focusing on Balkans issues from 2006-2008. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She is married to fellow Foreign Service Officer David Schroeder, and they have three sons.

The Honorable M. Roosevelt Ditlevson serves as Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs.

Mr. Paul Dodge is the Director for Arctic Policy in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Policy (OUSWP). He serves under the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War (DASW) for Americas Security Affairs (ASA). Prior to his current position, Mr. Dodge served as the Acting DASW for Arctic & Global Resilience, and as an Arctic Policy advisor in the same office. His other positions within OSW Policy have included serving as the Director for Force Development, Missile Defense Policy Advisor, Afghanistan Policy Advisor, and special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs. Prior to joining Policy, he held positions at the National Institute for Public Policy and the Missile Defense Agency. Mr. Dodge is currently a doctoral student at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. He holds an M.S. in National Security Strategy from the National War College, an M.S. in Defense and Strategic Studies from Missouri State University, as well as a B.A. in Communications from the University of California, San Diego.

Mr. Joseph M. Humire serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Americas Security Affairs, overseeing U.S. defense and security policy for Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense Integration and Defense Support of Civil Authorities, overseeing DOW's support to federal law enforcement and defending the southern border. Previously, Mr. Humire was a leading national security and defense expert on Transregional Threats in the Western Hemisphere. He testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress, as well as the Canadian and European Parliament, on counter-transnational organized crime, counterterrorism, border security, homeland defense, and developing strategies to deter and deny adversarial influence from growing in Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Humire also served as an expert witness in important international terrorism trials in South America. For 13 years, from 2012 - 2025, Mr. Humire was the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), a think tank he formed as an industry leader to combat transregional threats in Latin America and the Caribbean. He was also a Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for National Security and a Senior Fellow at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), where he helped establish AFPI's first Western Hemisphere Initiative. Mr. Humire is an author, publishing his first book in 2014 on Iran's Strategic Penetration of Latin America with publisher Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, and is working on his second book titled China's Strategic Encroachment of Latin America (forthcoming). In 2019, Mr. Humire wrote the foreword and a chapter in the last book by his late mentor, Dr. Max G. Manwaring, titled Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape, published by Praeger Security International. Mr. Humire is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, having served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, helping recover from the battlefield the remains of Marines Killed In Action to receive a proper military burial. He graduated from George Mason University with a degree in Economics and Global Affairs. Mr. Humire's unique blend of military experience, economics education, and expertise in asymmetric warfare offers a unique perspective to Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs grounded in an America First policy perspective and American values and leadership.

Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo Rendón serves as Minister of Defense for Ecuador. He is a security-sector professional with more than 25 years of experience in training, consulting, and high-level education in security and protection, serving both public and private entities. His career includes the development and supervision of programs for threat analysis, protection of people and infrastructure, and advanced security tactics. His professional training and specialization include instruction in protection and counterterrorism systems, and certification as a counterterrorism operations instructor from the Israeli Tactical School, an institution associated with international tactical training. He has obtained accreditation in the United States as an instructor in crime prevention for the Latin American region, awarded by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which supports his experience in integrated security methodologies and risk management in complex environments. The Inter-American Defense Board (IADB) awarded him the Medal of the Inter-American Defense Board in recognition of his contribution to strengthening national security and defense, as well as consolidating cooperative capabilities throughout the hemisphere.

Dr. Denise Natali is the Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, where she leads applied research and strategic analysis in direct support of the Department of War, the Joint Force, and senior national security decision-makers. Dr. Natali previously served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations. She has extensive on-the-ground experience in conflict zones in the Middle East and South Asia and has provided direct strategic and operational support to the Department of War for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, as well as Operation Provide Comfort II in northern Iraq, contributing to military planning and partner force engagement. Dr. Natali directed cross-border operations for an NGO in Peshawar, Pakistan and has taught at public and private universities in Iraq, including the American University of Iraq–Sulaymaniyah. Dr. Natali has published extensively on regional security, irregular warfare dynamics, state weakness, energy geopolitics, and cross-border conflict. Her books include The Kurdish Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post–Gulf War Iraq and The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Dr. Natali holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a B.A. in Government from Franklin & Marshall College. She studied at L’Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, the University of Tehran Deh Khoda Language Program in Iran, and Tel Aviv University. Dr. Natali is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and speaks French and conversational Kurdish and Farsi.

Colonel John Dee Suggs, Jr is Director of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. A native of North Carolina, he brings extensive academic preparation in Latin American studies, hemispheric area studies, and defense education to the role. Colonel Suggs holds a bachelor's degree in government, an associate degree in Spanish language, a bachelor's degree in history, a Master of Business Administration, and a Master of Latin American Studies from Vanderbilt University. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School, U.S. Army Logistics School, the Argentine Curso Oficial del Estado Mayor, and the U.S. Army War College, where he served as a War College Fellow conducting independent research on defense security cooperation at the University of Texas at Austin. His interdisciplinary academic grounding has shaped a career centered on hemispheric education and regional scholarship. Before leading the Perry Center, he served as the U.S. Southern Command representative to the National Capital Region; Commandant of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation; Chief of Security Cooperation at U.S. Army North; Army Mission Chief and liaison to the Peruvian Army at the U.S. Embassy in Peru; and Army Attaché to the Plurinational State of Bolivia

Mr. Zack Watson is a Senior Advisor at the Department of War (DoW) in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Policy, Americas Security Affairs. Zack has previously served in policy roles in Western Hemisphere Affairs at State, International Affairs at DHS, and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs at DoW. Zack served as an intelligence analyst at DIA from 2022-2025. He graduated from Georgetown University with a M.A. in Security Studies and Syracuse University with a B.A. in Political Science. He served in the Marine Corps from 2011-2016. He was born and raised in the Syracuse, New York area. He lives in Northern Virginia, enjoying life with his wife, one year-old-son, and two dogs.