The Honorable Stephen E. Biegun is senior vice president of Global Public Policy at The Boeing Company. In this role, he is responsible for advising and executing on Boeing’s global public policy matters in support of the company’s priorities and optimizing relationships with key stakeholders in the U.S. and around the world. He is also a member of the company’s Executive Council. Prior to Boeing, Stephen served as senior advisor at Macro Advisory Partners since 2021 assisting corporate leaders in minimizing geopolitical risk and business disruption in global markets. He has more than three decades of international affairs experience in government and the private sector, including high-level government service with the Department of State, the White House, and the United States Congress. In 2021, Stephen concluded his most recent government service as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, to which he was confirmed by the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 90-3. Earlier, Stephen served for 15 years as a corporate vice president with Ford Motor Company. Stephen began his career as an international affairs specialist with the United States Congress, serving in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives with a focus on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and Europe, and ultimately rising to a number of senior-level positions including as chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as the national security advisor to the Senate Majority Leader. He served two years as the Executive Secretary of the White House National Security Council, serving as an advisor and deputy to the National Security Advisor. From 1992- 94, he was the Resident Program Director in the Russian Federation for the International Republican Institute. Stephen has volunteered as a board member for several international, national, and local non-profit organizations. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy and has led mentoring programs for next generation U.S. foreign policy and national security leaders.
Professor Victor D. Cha is Distinguished University Professor, D.S. Song-KF Chairholder, and Professor of Government in the Department of Government and School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is also Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is the author of seven books, including the award-winning Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999) (winner of the 2000 Ohira Book Prize), and The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Harper Collins Ecco, 2012 selected by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Book on the Asia-Pacific for 2012.” His most recent book is Korea: A New History of South and North (Yale University Press, 2023) with Ramon Pacheco Pardo. His other books are Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2009); Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (Columbia University Press, 2003) with David Kang; and Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2016). His forthcoming book is The Black Box: Methods and Data in the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea (Columbia University Press, 2024). His articles on international relations and Asian affairs have appeared in numerous journals including International Security, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Armed Forces and Society, Foreign Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Asian Studies, International Journal of the History of Sport, and Journal of Strategic Studies. He was appointed in 2021 by the Joseph R. Biden administration to serve on the Defense Policy Board in an advisory role to the Secretary of Defense. He formerly served on the White House National Security Council where he was responsible primarily for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand and Pacific Island nation affairs. Dr. Cha was also the Deputy Head of Delegation for the United States at the Six Party Talks in Beijing, and received two Outstanding Service commendations during his tenure at the NSC. Dr. Cha is a two-time Fulbright Scholar, former Olin Fellow at Harvard University, and former Hoover, CISAC, and Koret Fellow at Stanford University. He currently serves on ten editorial boards of academic journals and is co-editor of the Contemporary Asia Book Series at Columbia University Press. In 2022, he was elected to serve on the Board for the National Endowment for Democracy, and he remains a Senior Fellow in Human Freedom (non-resident) at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. He is a Foreign Affairs Contributor for MSNBC and NBC News. Dr. Cha has appeared in a variety of media including ESPN, The Colbert Report, and a cameo role (as himself) in the 2012 film Red Dawn. He cohosts The Impossible State podcast and The Capital Cable YouTube show. In 2023, he was named Distinguished University Professor, the highest honor bestowed upon a tenured faculty member at Georgetown. He is the recipient of the 2023 Hubert H. Humphrey award from the American Political Science Association for notable public service by a political scientist and the 2023 Joseph Kurzel Memorial Prize for excellence in scholarship and public service (also from APSA). Dr. Cha received his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University, MIA from Columbia, B.A. Honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, and A.B. in Economics from Columbia.
Ambassador Chun Yungwoo is chairman and founder of The Korean Peninsula Future Forum (KPFF), a think tank with a particular focus on national security strategies and North Korea. Ambassador Chun served as the National Security Advisor to President Lee Myung-Bak from October 2010 to February 2013. Before his appointment to the Office of the President, he had been a career diplomat for 33 years. He served in key posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including as the Second Vice Foreign Minister (October 2009-October 2010), Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, Head of the ROK Delegation to the Six-Party Talks (February 2006-April 2008), and Deputy Foreign Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations (January 2005-April 2006). His senior overseas assignments include Ambassador to the United Kingdom (May 2008-November 2009) and Ambassador / Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York (June 2003-January 2005). Ambassador Chun graduated from Pusan National University with a B.A. in French in 1977 and received a Master of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in 1994. He authored a book titled President’s Foreign and National Security Policy Agenda in 2022 (published in Korean).
Natalie Colbert is the Executive Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Before coming to the Center, Colbert served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 13 years. Most recently, she was Director of Analytic Resources and Corporate Programs for the Near East Mission Center, where she led strategic management of analytic personnel resources and created a career development seminar for mid-level analysts. Prior to this role, Colbert led multiple analytic teams to produce intelligence assessments covering fast-paced issues in the Middle East for the President and other customers in the policymaking, intelligence, and military communities. Colbert previously served as an intelligence analyst covering conflict zones in Africa and Latin America. Across her CIA career, Colbert has earned awards for leadership excellence and in 2021 received the Near East Mission Center Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Colbert is a 2008 graduate of Harvard Kennedy School, where she earned a Master in Public Policy. She graduated in 2006 from New York University, majoring in International Relations and Francophone Studies.
Dr. John Park is the Director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His core research projects focus on deterrence, economic statecraft, nuclear proliferation, Asian alliances, and North Korean cyber operations. At Harvard University, he is an Associated Faculty Member of the Korea Institute, Faculty Member of the Committee on Regional Studies East Asia, and a Faculty Affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom. Dr. Park was the 2012-13 Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow at MIT’s Security Studies Program. He also directed Northeast Asia Track 1.5 dialogues at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. He advises Northeast Asia policy-focused officials in the U.S. government. Earlier, Dr. Park worked at Goldman Sachs and The Boston Consulting Group. Dr. Park’s key publications include: “Where Do Divergent U.S. and Chinese Approaches to Dealing with North Korea Lead?” in The China Questions II: Critical Insights into U.S.-China Relations (Harvard University Press, July 2022); “Micro Deterrence Signaling: Policy Innovation During the 2017 Korean Missile Crisis,” (Korea Project Report, Harvard Kennedy School, April 2022 – co-authored with General Vincent K. Brooks); “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences,” (MIT Security Studies Program, 2016 – co-authored with Dr. Jim Walsh); “The Key to the North Korean Targeted Sanctions Puzzle,” The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2014); “Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea” in Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Stanford University Press, 2012); “North Korea, Inc.: Gaining Insights into North Korean Regime Stability from Recent Commercial Activities” (USIP Working Paper, May 2009); and “North Korea’s Nuclear Policy Behavior: Deterrence and Leverage,” in The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford University Press, 2008). Dr. Park’s current research examines the North Korean regime’s accumulated learning in evading sanctions via cyber operations. He has testified on North Korea before the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee, and House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Park received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He completed his predoctoral and postdoctoral training at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
Dr. Gary Samore is a Senior Fellow with the Managing the Atom Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is also Professor of the Practice of Politics and Crown Family Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Department of Politics, Brandeis University. Dr. Samore was formerly Executive Director for Research at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Dr. Samore served for four years as President Obama’s White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), including as U.S. Sherpa for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Samore was Vice President for Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, where he held the Maurice R. Greenberg chair and directed the David Rockefeller Studies Program. Before joining CFR, Dr. Samore was vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, and from 2001 to 2005, he was Director of Studies and Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. At IISS, he produced three “strategic dossiers” on Iran (2005), North Korea (2004), and Iraq (2002), which are considered authoritative and exemplary assessments of nuclear, biological, chemical, and missile programs in those countries. Dr. Samore was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export controls under President Clinton from 1995 to 2000. Before the National Security Council, Dr. Samore worked on nonproliferation issues at the State Department. In 1995, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service for his role in negotiating the 1994 U.S.-North Korea nuclear agreement. Prior to the State Department, he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rand Corporation. Dr. Samore was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in government in 1984. While at Harvard, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at what was then the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs, later to become the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
