The Board manages and oversees all operations of Student Pugwash USA, and its programs Student Pugwash and the Rotblat Society. Powers and authority are frequently delegated to committees and working groups running specific programs and projects, but the buck, as they say, stops here.
The Board currently has four positions. We have more information on why it's done this way.
The Board elects its own members. Nominations are usually open and members are invited to nominate themselves, each other, or others with skills and energy that will improve the leadership of the organization.
Ruben Aronin has more than two decades of experience in creating, managing and executing highly effective policy, strategic communications and marketing initiatives for nonprofit organizations, foundations, government agencies and companies. He is currently Vice President for Outreach & Communications for the Better World Group (BWG), a boutique political and environmental consulting firm. He is an accomplished media spokesperson and media event strategist. Throughout his career, Ruben has created, managed and implemented highly visible and effective marketing, fundraising and policy initiatives to promote energy-efficiency and renewable energy; clean transportation; green cities, schools and neighborhoods; and smart climate solutions for low-income communities. He has also secured and managed major corporate sponsorship programs from leading companies promoting environmental initiatives including Starbucks, General Motors, Toyota, Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, Sprint, Yahoo!, Office Depot, L’Oreal, Planters, LA Car Guy, and more.
Chuck is a key member of the Design, Test, & Integration team at AMFitzgerald, which designs and prototypes microelectromechanical systems for a wide variety of clients including scientific, medical, industrial, and aerospace companies. Chuck’s work has included wireless sensor nodes, implantable biosensors, microvalves, DNA sequencing chips, microphones, gyroscopes, accelerometers, and pressure sensors. Chuck holds three undergraduate science degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also the nationally elected co-chair of the Student Pugwash network, a masters in Physics from Duke, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech. More recently, he frequently holds his baby daughter, Andromeda.
Pamela Clarke Torres is a seventh-generation fruit farmer in Milton, NY, managing five farmers markets in New York City’s Greenmarkets, and a commercial solar-powered kitchen creating new goods from her farm’s produce. She graduated from William & Mary with a degree in Anthropology in 1994, where she was an elected officer of the Student Pugwash chapter and national network, and interned at the SPUSA National Office following graduation. She continues to be interested in issues of science and technology, especially as they impact the next generation of students. She has served as President of her local library’s Board of Trustees, and also on her local church’s Board of Trustees.
ISYP Representative
David is co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies, and principal investigator and director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. He also is co-PI on the Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) project and the To Think, To Write, To Publish project. David is widely published and cited on research and development policy, technology assessment, public participation in science and technology, and the politics of science policy. His book _Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research_ was awarded the 2002 Don K. Price Prize by the American Political Science Association for best book in science and technology policy.
Board Chair
Jeff is an independent IT consultant, entrepreneur, and author, who is sobered and gratified to have the least impressive biography in this document, and to be working with such extraordinary people. His professional work is with small businesses and nonprofits, during which he has daily experience putting ethical IT practices into effect, both for how he works with his clients (sadly, not a given in the field), and how he advises clients to treat their own customers. Throughout his career he has maintained interest and involvement in socially responsible organizations working on information policy. He has served multiple stints on the SPUSA Board and as its former elective student co-chair and board representative; other nonprofit positions have included advisory positions for the Federation of American Scientists and ISODARCO, the board of the World Federalist Movement, the board of the Kappa Alpha Literary Society, and the co-founder of “Noodle Club,” a networking venue for young nonprofit professionals in Washington, DC. In 1992, he became a member of “Senior” Pugwash when he was invited to a workshop conference in Nova Scotia, and later presented the agenda paper for his committee at the 1997 Pugwash quinquennial conference in Norway.
Aymerik is General Partner focusing on North American investments at Hardware Club, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo. His hardware expertise includes Internet of Things, wearable computing, connected consumer electronics, and mobile medical devices, following work growing companies innovating in email, VOIP, e-commerce, servers, predictive analytics, CRM, video technologies, security, and online gaming. He has lived in the US, Norway, Brazil, France, Scotland, England, China, and Singapore, and maintains a global network of professional colleagues.
Rich graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990 with a double major in Biology and Classical Studies. After graduation, Rich spent a year doing neuroscience research at Children’s Hospital in Boston. While in Boston he had the incredible opportunity of dancing with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Co.’s Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. Rich graduated from Temple University School of Medicine in 1995. Rich completed an Internal Medicine residency at The University of Pittsburgh in 1998. He volunteered at the resident homeless clinic and helped create a guide for local behavioral health resources. He’s been in private practice since 1998 in New Jersey and Arizona, from a single specialty group with a focus on nursing home geriatric care to a multi specialty group and hospitalist-hybrid work. He served briefly as an associate medical director for a national hospice organization and is currently in a large primary care group in Tucson.
Carlo is retired as Professor of Physics at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata,” and co-founder and President of the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO), an independent NGO with headquarters in Rome and connected with the Italian Pugwash Group. Since 1966 ISODARCO has organized residential advanced courses and seminars on international security with particular attention to the risks of nuclear conflicts and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. An ISODARCO course invites scholars and experts to lecture on the problems of international security and admits 40-60 participants selected for their interest in the field. Participants include senior and graduate University students, junior and senior professionals and teachers, and members of civil society, all interested in playing a more active and technically competent role in their different professions and political activities. ISODARCO courses are organized with formal sessions, seminars, working groups and open discussions. Chairpersons are instructed to give priority during the discussions to student participants. Carlo has edited around 15 books on disarmament issues and around 10 on topics relevant to his professional activity as an experimentalist in the field of nuclear and elementary particles physics. He is the author of more than 100 articles in physics on refereed scientific journals and the principal investigator of a two-volume body of research on political violence in Italy supported by the Italian National Research Council (CNR).
Dann is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University, and Associate Director of the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center. His research combines ecological systems analysis, technical assistance for environmental policy and management, and examination of collaborative ecological problem-solving processes and innovations. He returns to SPUSA with prior Board experience. Dann has researched and developed numerous methods to assist environmental policy, management and compliance. He has worked with programs for EPA’s Office of Water, the Chesapeake Bay, Cook Inlet, AK, the State of Texas, and international basins on four continents.
Board Vice-Chair
Rachel served as Vice-President for Student Pugwash USA from 2015–2018 and has served as a board member since 2014. Her past responsibilities included co-leading the re-branding initiative for the organization, assisting in hosting the workshop series, and recruiting new board members. Her research activities with Pugwash explores perspectives on social responsibility in science and technology as it evolved through the history of Pugwash and Student Pugwash USA to understand the history of the idea of social responsibility as interpreted, understood, and applied by Student Pugwash members. Before her involvement with Student Pugwash USA, Rachel was the President of Purdue Student Pugwash for the for the 2013, 2016, and 2017 academic years. Her greatest accomplishment was raising a chapter record $32,000 for the 2018 annual regional conference on climate change and sustainability and received numerous scholarship awards for her leadership tenure. Aside from her Pugwash activities, Rachel most recently received an MBA from Purdue University, and also holds a MSc in Global Health from the University of Notre Dame and a BS in Chemistry/Biochemistry from Purdue University.
Board Vice-Chair
Dirk is a management consultant and alumnus of Penn Student Pugwash. The scope of his corporate and freelance engagements include dispute resolution training and private/civil mediation, information privacy and breach response, corporate policy development, executive coaching, interim management, and technology commercialization and product feasibility. His clients and advisory roles include the Northern Alberta Business Incubator, the Alberta Science and Research Investments Program, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures, and the National Research Council (Canada). He is also an accomplished public speaker; his last talk, titled “Are Entrepreneurs Heroes or Fools?”, was given to a plenary session of a Canadian provincial high school STEM conference. He has served on the board of several nonprofit and community organizations, most recently the Patient-Centered Care and Steering Committee, and Co-Chair of the Family Advisory Council, at Alberta Children’s Hospital. An avid mountaineer and wilderness medic, he has recently shifted his risk exposure to maintaining the physical integrity of his local Cub Scout troop.