Executive Board Members

Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only. 

• Ms. Linda Staheli, Vice President of Executive Board; Senior Staff Associate, Congressional Relations, U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation
• Dr. Nora Bensahel, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation
• Ms. Naila Bolus, Executive Director, Ploughshares Fund
• Ms. Paula Broadwell, Research Associate, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
• Ms. Elsie Chang, Senior Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton
• Ms. Deepti Choubey, Deputy Director, Nonproliferation Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Dr. Janine Davidson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans
• Dr. Leonora Gant, Director of the ODNI Intelligence Community (IC) Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) Program Office
• Ms. Melanie Greenberg, President, Cypress Fund for Peace and Security
• Ms. Eileen Isola, Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force (Retired); Program Manager and Senior Defense Analyst, SAIC, Inc.
• Ms. Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies
• Dr. Deepa M. Ollapally, Senior Fellow, Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University
• Dr. Tammy Schultz, Director of the National Security and Joint Warfare and an Associate Professor of Strategic Studies at the United States Marine Corps War College
• Dr. Joanna Spear, Director of the Security Policy Program and Acting Director of the Foreign Policy Institute, George Washington University
• Ms. Meredith Woodruff, Vice President for Special Programs, ABRAXAS Corporation

Executive Board Member Biographies

Nora Bensahel is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, specializing in military strategy and doctrine. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Her recent work has examined stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, post-conflict reconstruction, military coalitions, and multilateral intervention. Her latest publications include The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Europe, NATO, and the European Union and The Future Security Environment in the Middle East. She has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and frequently appears as a commentator in the news media. Back to the top

Naila Bolus is the Executive Director of Ploughshares Fund, a San Francisco-based public foundation whose purpose is to provide financial resources to organizations working to stop the spread and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to prevent conflicts that could lead to the use of WMD. As Executive Director, Ms. Bolus is responsible for the strategic direction of the foundation, overseeing the grantmaking program, interfacing with the trustees and securing annual operating funds. Ms. Bolus moved to San Francisco from Washington, DC, where she spent eight years in the non-governmental advocacy community. Prior to the Ploughshares Fund, she served as Director of 20/20 Vision, a national grassroots lobby that works to promote security and protect the environment. Ms. Bolus helped found and served as the Political Director for WiLL, The Women Legislators’ Lobby, where she recruited one third of all women state legislators to lobby for human services, environmental protection and security. She also served as Legislative Director for Women’s Action for New Directions and lobbied Congress on a range of security and women’s issues. She served as director of WAND PAC and as WAND’s Field Director, organizing and training local grassroots leaders; and has been involved in several local, congressional and presidential election campaigns. Ms. Bolus has published numerous articles and op-eds in major magazines and newspapers, has appeared as a guest on local, regional and nationally syndicated talk radio shows, and has conducted interviews with television and video programs. Ms. Bolus graduated from Tufts University in 1987 with a degree in International Relations. She earned a Certificate of Political Studies from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France. Back to the top

Leonora Gant is a member of the Senior Intelligence/Executive Service and Director of the ODNI Intelligence Community (IC) Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) Program Office. She served on a two-year academic sabbatical at Trinity University, Washington, DC as a visiting professor, scholar-in-residence, Programs in International Affairs prior to this current assignment. Dr. Gant directs the ODNI IC CAE Program Office; she oversees CAE operations for ten (10) accredited U.S. universities. Dr. Gant has extensive work experiences with the Department of Defense; she has held a variety of progressively responsible positions where she managed multi-million dollar budgets for human resources management, education, and technology-based training initiatives. Her career expands more than 20 years and includes positions with Department of the Navy and Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, Marine Corps Institute, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency--Joint Military Intelligence College and the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center. Dr. Gant performed duty assignments in Okinawa, Japan, Oxfordshire, England, NATO in Brussels Belgium and other locations to include Washington, DC. Dr. Gant lectured at the Business Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Gant’s academic credentials include a B.S. School of Business and Industry, Florida A and M University; M.A., George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University; and Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is a graduate several executive programs: DOD Executive Leadership Development Program, George Washington University Executive Contemporary Development Program, American Institute for Managing Diversity; Diversity Management Institute at Hollins College, The Brookings Institute Senior Level Benchmarking Program and Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government programs— Leadership for 21st Century and Program for Senior Managers in Government. Back to the top

Melanie Greenberg is President of the Cypress Fund for Peace and Stability. Previously, she was a visiting scholar at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and the Director of the Conflict Resolution Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Greenberg was the Associate Director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Deputy Director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. In her work on international conflict resolution, Ms. Greenberg has helped design and facilitate public peace processes in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Northern Ireland. She has taught courses in international conflict resolution, multi-party conflict resolution and negotiation at Stanford Law School and Georgetown Law Center, and she was lead editor and chapter author of the volume Words over War: Mediation and Arbitration to Prevent Deadly Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Ms. Greenberg chairs the board of the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution, and serves on the board of Lawyers Alliance for World Security. She is also on the editorial boards of Dispute Resolution Magazine and the Peace and Conflict Studies Journal. She holds an AB from Harvard and a JD from Stanford Law School. Back to the top

Eileen Isola is a Program Manager and Senior Defense Analyst at SAIC, Inc. Prior to joining SAIC, Eileen was a member of the initial cadre that stood up US Northern Command serving as a Deputy Chief for the USNORTHCOM Battlestaff, Executive Officer, and Division Chief for both the Capabilities-Requirements and the Program Analysis & Evaluation divisions within the J8. A command pilot with over 3,000 hours, including 14 combat missions, she held various operational, staff and command positions, and was the first Air Force woman to serve as an Advance Agent for the President serving with Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton. While on active duty, she also served as the President and Chair of the Board of Women Military Aviators, a non-profit of over 800 members dedicated to promoting and preserving for historical, educational and literary purposes the role of women pilots, navigators, and aircrew members in the service of their country during times of war and peace. Since joining SAIC in 2005, Eileen has been part of the leading edge team delivering scientific, engineering and operational analysis through the development and use of innovative methodologies, tools, models and simulations addressing the most challenging needs and problems of Combatant Commands, Services, Agencies, Allies, and our other defense and security partners. Eileen received her bachelor’s degree in Management from the US Air Force Academy in 1985, a master’s in Electrical Engineering from St Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, in 1993, a master’s in Strategic Studies from Air University in 2002, and is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College in 1997. She is also Adjunct Faculty for the University of Colorado’s graduate Homeland Security program and the Mountain State University Strategic Leadership program. The author of several papers on humanitarian emergencies and leadership, Eileen is a certified Instructional System Developer and a small arms marksmanship expert. Back to the top

Laura S. Hayes Holgate (President of WIIS) is Vice President for Russia/Newly Independent States Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reducing the global threat from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. She is responsible for designing and executing action-oriented projects to secure and eliminate nuclear material and develop novel approaches to increasing the resources and efficiency of international threat reduction assistance. Prior to this position, she directed the Department of Energy's Fissile Materials Disposition office, which disposes of uranium and plutonium from dismantled U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, and served as Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction at the Department of Defense, where she oversaw policy for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Nunn-Lugar program. She has served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy; on the Clinton Transition Team at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA); and as Special Assistant to the Acting Director of ACDA. As a member of the WIIS Executive Board, Ms. Holgate has helped with fundraising and events, including organizing and speaking at policy forums. Back to the top

Dalia Mogahed is a Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a nonpartisan research center dedicated to providing data-driven analysis on the views of Muslim populations around the world. With John L. Esposito, Ph.D., she is coauthor of the book Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Her analysis has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy magazine, the Harvard International Review, the Middle East Policy journal, and many other academic and popular journals. Mogahed leads the analysis of Gallup’s unprecedented survey representing the opinions of more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide, including Muslims in the West. She also directs the Muslim-West Facts Initiative (www.muslimwestfacts.com), through which Gallup, in collaboration with the Coexist Foundation, is disseminating the findings of the Gallup World Poll to key opinion leaders in the Muslim World and the West. Mogahed earned her master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in strategy from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. Back to the top

Deepa M. Ollapally is Senior Fellow at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University. Previously, she was a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, and a South Asia specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace, focusing on South Asian security issues. She taught in the Political Science Department at Swarthmore College from 1991-96. Following that, she set up a program in international studies at one of India's leading think tanks, the National Institute of Advanced Studies, where she was Fellow and Head of the International and Strategic Studies Program. Under a Ford Foundation grant in 1998, she established the first regional network of South Asian Women in International Security as a forum for research and collaboration, and an avenue for track-two diplomacy. Dr. Ollapally is author of Confronting Conflict: Domestic Factors and U.S. Policymaking in the Third World (1993) and numerous journal articles for Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Current History, Asian Affairs, and other publications. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Back to the top

Tammy S. Schultz is the Director of the National Security and Joint Warfare and an Associate Professor of Strategic Studies at the United States Marine Corps War College. Dr. Schultz also conducts communication simulations at the State Department for Foreign Service Officers, and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. Previously, she was a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Prior to joining CNAS, she served as a Research Fellow and Director of Research and Policy at the U.S. Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI). Dr. Schultz was also a Brookings Institution Research Fellow from 2003 to 2004. Dr. Schultz graduated summa cum laude from Regis University in Political Science and English in 1995, and then attended Victoria University in New Zealand on a Rotary Fellowship, receiving a M.A. degree with distinction in 1999. While attending Victoria University, Dr. Schultz worked in the U.S. Embassy’s political division in Wellington. Her thesis focused on the new terrorist threat that included al-Qaeda, which she continued to study while at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University as an Olin Foundation and Philip Merrill Fellow. She received her Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 2005. Dr. Schultz has been published in The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and Defense News, among other publications, and is frequently quoted on defense and national security issues. She is a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a member of Women in International Security, and a principal in the Truman National Security Project. Back to the top

Joanna Spear is the Director of the Security Policy Program and Acting Director of the Foreign Policy Institute at George Washington University. Before that she was Senior Lecturer and Director of the Graduate Research Program in the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London. She has taught at the University of Sheffield, York University, and Birmingham University. She has been a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Science in International Affairs at Harvard and a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution. Her publications include the forthcoming book, The Changing Political Economy of the Defense Trade. She has published widely in academic and non-academic venues on U.S. arms sales policies, U.S. counter-proliferation policies, transatlantic relations, and post-conflict reconstruction. She serves on the Board of BASIC and has written reports for the United Nations Foundation for the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel. She recently completed a report on private military forces in Sierra Leone for the FAFO Institute in Oslo and also consulted for the Government of Japan. She has been interviewed on VOA and provided information to the British House of Commons on arms sales issues. Dr. Spear holds a Ph.D. from Southampton University, UK. Back to the top

Linda Staheli (Vice President of WIIS) is Senior Staff Associate, Congressional Relations, U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), a federally funded organization which specializes in international science collaborations, especially programs that re-direct the focus and work of former weapons scientists in the former Soviet Union. Her career has spanned 25 years, focusing initially on arms control and national security and more recently on international science and technology policy. From 1998 to 2002, she had her own consulting firm. Clients included the RAND Corporation. From 1995 to 1998, Ms. Staheli directed the National Institutes of Health’s Division of International Relations at the Fogarty International Center, managing a group of professionals responsible for coordinating and developing international biomedical collaborations working with the twenty-four NIH institutes. From1993 to 1995, she managed international relations for the President’s Science Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and previously she worked at the State Department negotiating and implementing S&T agreements with Japan and Korea and managing a Joint S&T Fund for the countries of Central Europe. Before that, she was a lobbyist for the Council for a Livable World and in 1987 she helped establish WIIS as a Macarthur Fellow. Ms. Staheli holds a B.A. in International Studies from the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington and a master’s degree in Public Management from the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. Back to the top