For more than a decade, Dr. Stefan Tschauko has been studying communications issues at the United Nations. He is especially interested in how complex international organizations can best communicate with stakeholders to create a better understanding of, and support for, their work. In his research, he explores how branding relates to the performance of international organizations in the UN system. In collaboration with the UN’s communications department, he also analyzed the UN’s approach to branding and social media. His analyses contributed to the restructuring of the UN’s social media workflow and to reviews of branding strategies across the UN system. 

Stefan has taught at Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Tufts, and Fairleigh Dickinson Universities as well as Sciences Po in Paris. He has also held workshops on graphic design and on personal knowledge management at Columbia, Harvard, The Fletcher School, and the International Studies Association. Previously, he worked at a branding and graphic design company in Vienna and at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in NYC.

Stefan earned degrees in International Relations (PhD, MALD) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, in International Management (MS, CEMS) from the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, and in Information Management (DI FH) from FH Joanneum in Graz, Austria. He spent exchange semesters at Sciences Po in Paris, Koç University in Istanbul, and the University of Portsmouth in the UK.

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Prof. Daniel Naujoks is faculty director of the UN Partnership Initiative at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). From 2009–2025, he also served as director of SIPA’s International Organization & UN Studies Specialization. His research focuses on global governance, the effects of migration, refugees, and citizenship on social, economic, and political development, as well as interagency cooperation between UN agencies, including his book Migration, Citizenship, and Development (2013, Oxford University Press). Daniel regularly advises governments and international organizations—including UNDP, IOM, World Bank, ILO, UN-DESA, OECD, UN Women, UNESCWA, and UNICEF.

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Dr. Eli Karetny is the interim director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies (RBI) at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Prior to taking on this role, he served as deputy director and head of programs and operations, and worked alongside Thomas G. Weiss on various United Nations research projects (such as the United Nations Intellectual History Project). Eli is the Principal Investigator on the Institute’s core research projects, such as the China at CUNY Initiative (CACI). He also oversees relations with sponsors, liaises with university administration, and serves as the Institute’s grants director and financial officer. Eli also serves as the legal and financial advisor to the RBI’s Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) and the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (CSHGCAH), and is a member of the boards of both organizations. Eli earned degrees in political theory from the CUNY Graduate Center, international relations from NYU, and a JD from Temple University.

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Caroline Bouchard is an Associate Professor of International Communication in the Department of Social and Public Communication at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada. She previously held research and teaching positions in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Her current research focuses on communication within the UN system in the digital age. She has contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy (OUP, 2024), Digital Diplomacy and International Organisations (Routledge, 2020), and Oxford Bibliographies (OUP, 2023) on this topic.

Jennifer Ford is the executive director of marketing and communications for the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, where she leads the college’s strategic communications, marketing, branding, media relations and digital engagement efforts.

Prior to being named executive director in 2025, she served as interim executive director and previously held roles as director of marketing and communications for CJC and marketing director for UF CJC Online. During her tenure with the college, she has helped elevate the visibility and reputation of the college through integrated marketing campaigns, strategic storytelling and brand development initiatives supporting academic programs, research, student success and institutional advancement.

Ford has also served as an adjunct instructor in the UF CJC Online graduate program. Before joining the College of Journalism and Communications, she worked in design, editorial and communications roles at UF Online, the UF Career Connections Center, The New York Times Company and other small publishing organizations.

Beyond UF, she is an active leader in the national design and communications community. She serves on the national board of AIGA, the professional association for design, and was recently elected vice president of the organization.

She holds a master’s degree in mass communication with a specialization in web design and online communication from the University of Florida, a bachelor’s degree in mass communication with a focus on graphic design and visual communication from Idaho State University, and a User Experience Design Certification from the Nielsen Norman Group.

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Ingrid A. Lehmann is the author of Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire (London: Cass, 1999) and many articles on issues of international political communication. She is a practitioner who worked in the United Nations Secretariat for over twenty-five years, including service in the Department of Public Information and in two UN peacekeeping missions. Ingrid has an MA in history from the University of Minnesota and an MA and a doctorate in political science from the University of Berlin. In 1993–94 she was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University; in 1996–97 she was a researcher at Yale University’s UN Studies Program; and in 2004 she was a fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. Ingrid Lehmann taught international communication at the University of Salzburg for eleven years. She is the Co-Director of Peacehawks, a blog dedicated to issues arising from the maintenance and enforcement of international security: www.peacehawks.net. She is also a member of the Board of Prospex Institute in Brussels/Berlin/Ljubljana.

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Senior Branding and Design Leader with over 20 years of international experience across institutional, corporate, and editorial communications, including more than a decade within the United Nations system, Jesús Vicente currently leads Visual Identity and Graphic Design at the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva. He specializes in brand governance, visual identity systems, and multi-channel design, with a proven track record in organizational rebranding, digital transformation, and large-scale communication initiatives. Known for combining strong creative direction with strategic thinking and operational leadership, he has managed global campaigns, publications, and conference communications while overseeing agencies, budgets, and production workflows. His career spans leadership roles across Europe and Asia, award-winning editorial and digital projects, and founding the UN Designers & Visual Communicators network, reflecting his commitment to design excellence, innovation, and collaboration in multicultural environments.

Dr. Namoin Yao-Baglo is associate professor of Organizational Communication at the University of Lomé in Togo (West Africa) and currently director of the Communication Institute (ISICA) in the same University with fifteen years of academic research and teaching experience. Her research focuses primarily on the practice of communication in private and public organizations, media and society. She has published several articles on these topics in collaboration with colleagues across Africa and Europe. She sits on the board of directors for many not-for-profit organizations in Togo like the Professional Communication Association (Aprocom-Togo) and serves as the point of contact for The University of Lomé – University of Bordeaux Montaigne Partnership.

She holds a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne in 2011. She is a Fulbright Alumni by doing her visiting Scholar at Michigan State University between 2022-2023.

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Prof. Yann Toma is a Tenured professor in arts at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a French artist with a conceptual approach. He is also an artist-observer at the UN since 2007, an academic researcher at the Sorbonne, and the president of Sorbonne Sustainable Development. His work intersects energy, networks, and ethics and has repeatedly focused on the United Nations. For example, during COP 21 in Paris, he harnessed the energy of millions of people and created a new illumination for the Eiffel Tower. As UN Artist-Observer, he collects artistic energy in diplomatic meetings and turns it into drawings. Yann Toma also leads the Master in Arts and Vision and he is the founder and curator of the Sorbonne Artgallery, an artist-run space located inside the Sorbonne.

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Chantal de Jonge Oudraat is the John O. Rankin Professor of Practice of International Affairs and Program Director of the Masters of Arts in International Affairs at the GW Elliott School of International Affairs.

She served as President and CEO of Women in International Security (WIIS) from January 2013 to July 2021 and is a member of its Board of Directors. She has held senior positions at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) North America; the US Institute of Peace (USIP); the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University; the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. She was a Fellow and Global fellow at the Wilson Center from 2021-2025. She was also for many years an adjunct associate professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

de Jonge Oudraat has published extensively on international security, gender, and WPS issues. Her latest publications include: an edited volume with Michael E. Brown The Gender and Security Agenda: Strategies for the 21st Century (Routledge, 2020); and a co-authored book with Michael E. Brown, Men, Masculinities and Security (forthcoming 2026). de Jonge Oudraat did her undergraduate studies at the University of Amsterdam and received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Paris II (Panthéon).

Jean-Marie Guéhenno is the Arnold A .Saltzman professor of professional practice in international and public affairs and the director of the Kent Global Leadership Program in conflict resolution at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

He is a member of the U.N. advisory board on disarmament matters, of the High-level Advisory Board on mediation created by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and of the International Advisory Board of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He is also a counsellor of the Australian consultancy Dragoman, and a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Crisis Group from 2014 to 2017. He has held numerous senior-level positions during his distinguished career, spanning peacekeeping, international security and defense policy.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno was the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations from 2000 to 2008, becoming the longest-serving head of peacekeeping and leading an unprecedented expansion of peacekeeping. When Kofi Annan was appointed Joint Special Envoy for Syria in 2012, he selected Mr Guéhenno to be his Deputy, a position he left to chair a review of France’s defense and national security at the request of the President of France. Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Guéhenno had a distinguished career in the French Government and the private sector. He was the director of policy planning in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1993, when the Cold War ended. Subsequently, as the ambassador to the Western European Union, he helped lay the foundations of a renewed European defense effort. From 1998 to 2000, he was chairman of the French Institute of Higher Defense Studies.

Mr. Guéhenno has published articles in many newspapers and magazines, and is the author of four books: La Fin de la Démocratie (1993), a book acclaimed by The Economist, which has been translated in a dozen languages, and is considered as the first book to have identified the challenges of globalization, L’Avenir de la liberté, la Démocratie dans la mondialisation (1999), The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of Peacekeeping in the 21st Century (2015) and Le Premier XXIème Siècle, de la Globalisation à l’Émiettement du Monde (2021), which received the annual prize of the Revue des Deux Mondes in 2022.

Mr. Guéhenno is a board member of the Carnegie Corporation, the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He is the chair of the scientific committee of the Institute for Higher national defense studies (Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale) in Paris. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Guéhenno holds the highest decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany (commander of the Bundesverdienstkreuz), and is an officier de la Légion d’Honneur. Mr. Guéhenno is bilingual English-French. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Superieure, the Institut d’Eudes Politiques, and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA)

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Professor Maria Ivanova is the Director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University and an expert in international environmental governance, sustainability, and the science-policy interface. She is also the Co-Director of the Plastics Center at Northeastern.

Professor Ivanova is the author of The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty (MIT Press, 2021) and has published widely on global environmental governance, climate change, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Her research examines the effectiveness of international institutions, national performance on environmental conventions, and the role of small states in multilateral environmental governance. In 2022, she was part of Rwanda’s delegation to the UN Environment Assembly, negotiating the resolution for a global treaty to eliminate plastic pollution. She continues to play an active role in the treaty negotiations as head of Northeastern University’s delegation. Professor Ivanova has also been working to bridge policy and the arts, collaborating with artists to raise awareness of environmental challenges.

Professor Ivanova holds a PhD from Yale University, master’s degrees in International Relations and Environmental Management from Yale, and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. Originally from Bulgaria, she has worked at the OECD in Paris and at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency in Stockholm.

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Mr. Martin Nesirky was Director of the United Nations Information Service in Vienna from April 2014 until his retirement on 31 December 2024. He served as Spokesperson for the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in New York from December 2009 to March 2014.

Before that, he was Spokesperson and Head of Press and Public Information at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Vienna, for more than three years.

He had an extensive journalistic career at Thomson Reuters (1982 to 2006), serving as Bureau Chief, News and Television, both in Moscow and Seoul; prior postings also included assignments in London, East Berlin and The Hague.

A UK national and graduate of Bath University, Mr. Nesirky has two sons and two daughters.

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Thomas G. Weiss is a distinguished scholar of international relations and global governance with special expertise in the politics of the United Nations. He is Presidential Professor Emeritus of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director Emeritus of its Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; and Global Eminence Scholar, Kyung Hee University, Korea.

He has written extensively about multilateral approaches to international peace and security, humanitarian action, and sustainable development. Recent book include: The “Third” United Nations: How a Knowledge Ecology Helps the UN Think (2021); Rethinking Global Governance (2019); The United Nations and Changing World Politics (2019). Among his recent edited volumes are International Organization and Global Governance (2023), Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities (2022), and Global Governance Futures (2022).

He initiated the UN Intellectual History Project in 1999 to trace the origins and the evolution of key ideas about international economic and social development nurtured under UN auspices. As a norm entrepreneur, Weiss introduced the idea of the “Third United Nations,” and directed the research team that popularized the concept of Responsibility to Protect. A firm believer in R2P, Weiss has shown in numerous works that a well-grounded interpretation of sovereignty does not preclude intervention in the face of mass atrocities. His oral history transcript is available on the UN Intellectual History Project website.