Massachusetts Peace Action Speakers Bureau

 To arrange for talks with your community, campus, church, or union group, write info@masspeaceaction.org or call 617-354-2169.

Joseph GersonJoseph Gerson

President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, Co-Convener of the Peace & Planet international network, and co-founder of the Committee for a Sane China Policy. He works closely with Asian and European peace and nuclear disarmament movements and a frequent keynote speaker at the World Conference against A- & H- Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other international and U.S. forums.  He has a PhD in Politics and International Security Studies and is the author of three books and many articles about U.S. nuclear weapons policies and the history their use. He helped to launch the nuclear weapons freeze movement of the 1980s, led the successful opposition to construction of naval nuclear weapons bases in Boston, Rhode Island and New York, and was the lead organizer of international conferences and mass mobilizations on the eves of the 2010 and 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.  He was formerly director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Peace and Economic Security Program.

Topics:

U.S. and other nations’ nuclear weapons policies
Deadly Connections Between Nuclear War and Military Intervention
U.S. and international campaigning for a nuclear weapons-free world
The U.S.-Korea crisis
U.S.-Chinese and U.S./NATO-Russia tensions and peaceful alternatives
Move the Money

SubrataGhoshroy2Subrata Ghoshroy

Subrata Ghoshroy is a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society. Before joining MIT, Mr. Ghoshroy was a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was a Senior Defense Analyst at the Government Accountability Office, a Congressional Fellow under the AAAS program, and a staff member of the House International Relations Committee and the House Armed Services Committee where he worked on issues of non-proliferation, arms control, South Asian security, ballistic missile defense, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, laser weapons, chemical weapons demilitarization, and landmines.  He was also responsible for monitoring and evaluating budget and policy matters related to Military Research and Development (RDT&E) using his expertise to carry out comprehensive evaluations of complex weapons systems that incorporate state-of-the-art technology.   Prior to his transition to the policy world, Subrata worked more than 20 years as an engineer and an engineering-manager in developing high-power and high-energy laser, electron beam, and pulse power technologies and has a highly successful track record in managing sophisticated, interdisciplinary teams to develop advanced technology for DOD, DOE, and NASA.  He holds master’s degrees in both electrical engineering and public policy.

Topics:
Missile Defense
Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Military-Industrial Complex
Pentagon Funding of Scientific Research
Indian Nuclear Policy

ggoldstein[1]Gary R. Goldstein

 Gary Goldstein is Professor of Physics at Tufts University. He is a theoretical physicist, specializing in high energy particle physics and nuclear physics. As a researcher and teacher, he has taught almost every kind of course including Physics for Humanists, The Nuclear Age (with Prof. M. Sherwin – History), and Physics of Music and Color. He is a progressive and a political activist on nuclear issues, social equity, anti-war, and environmentalism. He spent several years working in the MIT Program for Science, Technology and International Security. He is an advisor on Science Education research for K-12 students in public schools and a member of the board of the Mass Peace Action Education Fund. He has given many talks over the years about the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.

 
Topics:
Ballistic Missile Defense or Star Wars
The Nuclear Arsenal
Arms Control and Reduction
Proliferation
Is Iran Developing Nuclear Weapons?
Reactors and Risks

Cole Hrsz_colearrison

Cole Harrison is Executive Director of Massachusetts Peace Action. 

Topics

A Foreign Policy for All: Reframing US foreign policy in the interests of the great majority
The People’s Budget – a Unity Platform for the Progressive Movement
U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen; war threats in Iran, Venezuela, Korea

Jonathan KingJonathan King

Professor of Molecular Biology at MIT, where he has long taught  biochemistry and directed a biomedical research team on protein folding and human disease. Prof. King is a past President of the Biophysical Society and serves on national committees addressing the federal R& D Budget. Long engaged with issues of science education, Prof. King currently serves on the Board of Citizens for Public Schools of Massachusetts. Prof. King was a co-author of the Science for Peace Resolution of the World Council of Churches, calling for continuing nuclear disarmament. Subsequently he was a leader of the national campaign of biomedical scientists to press the Senate to ratify the Biological Weapons Convention. Prof. King currently serves as co-chair of the Board of Massachusetts Peace Action and chairs its Nuclear Disarmament Working Group. He also works with the national People’s Budget Coalition that supports the Congressional Progressive Caucus on federal budget priorities, and this work connects with the Poor People’s Campaign.

Topics

Investing in Minds not Missiles – Resisting the Trillion Dollar Nuclear Weapon Escalation
Build Subways Not Submarines
Healthcare not Warfare!

Jeff KleinJeff Klein

Board member Jeff Klein is a retired machinist and union activist. He worked at GE in Lynn and for the Mass Water Resources Authority on Deer Island, where he was president of his local union for ten years. Since 2003 he has been active with Dorchester People for Peace in opposing US wars abroad and promoting social justice at home, and edits the weekly newsletter DPP Update. He has traveled widely in Palestine/Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, participating in solidarity efforts and promoting freedom for the Palestinians from occupation and racism. He speaks regularly about the Israel-Palestine conflict in schools, churches, mosques, community and peace organizations, has appeared on local TV and radio, and has published articles and op-ed pieces on US policy, politics and Middle East issues. In the 1980’s Jeff lived and worked in Nicaragua, then joined the South African freedom struggle, working for the exiled African National Congress in Lusaka, Zambia. He taught English at the Association of Haitian Women in Boston (AFAB). Jeff lives in Dorchester and has two grown children.

Topics:
Roots of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict
Understanding Today’s Middle East

rsz_guntramGuntram Mueller

Past co-chair of Massachusetts Peace Action’s Nuclear Abolition Task Force and past chair of its Board, Guntram Mueller is a retired professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He designed a wind turbine and formed a company to market it. Born in Germany, Mueller grew up in Montreal and is now a resident of Newton.

Topics:
The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Power: Unacceptable Risk

Thea Paneth

Thea Paneth

Thea Paneth is a long time anti-nuclear activist.  She was a “rank-and-file” clam at the 1977 occupation of the Seabrook (NH) nuclear plant and is a founding member of a local peace group in her hometown of Arlington, Massachusetts.  She has published Common Dreams, Truthout and in the Arlington Advocate. Letters to the editor have appeared in the Boston Globe, New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine. She has spoken often at Boston area peace protests and at the 90th Anniversary War Resisters League Conference and at many events.  She is also a non-violence trainer. 

Topics:  

Current wars, military spending, nuclear power and weapons, movement history, local organizing.

Elaine ScarryElaine Scarry

Elaine Scarry teaches at Harvard University where she is the Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value. Her books include The Body in Pain, On Beauty and Being Just, and most recently, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom. Her essays appear in Boston Review, New York Review of Books, and Best American Essays of 2007, 2005, and 1995. In 2005, Prospect Magazine and Foreign Policy listed her in “Top 100 Leading Public Intellectuals.”

Dr. Scarry has lectured widely to programs in literature, medicine, and law. Her focus is the problem of citizenship in the face of intentionally inflicted injury: torture, war, and the monarchic structures in place since the invention of nuclear weapons.

Stephen SlanerStephen E. Slaner

Stephen E. Slaner is a professor of political science at Northern Essex Community College, where he has taught for 10 years.  He has an Ed.D. from Harvard, an M.Phil. from Columbia, and an A.B. from Brandeis.  He has been engaged in anti-nuclear activity for over 60 years, including attendance at the giant nuclear freeze rally in Central Park in 1982.  

Dr. Slaner is available to speak on nuclear abolition in general and on anti-nuclear films in particular.  These include, but are not limited to, The Sacrifice, Letters from a Dead Man, The Bed-Sitting Room, I Live in Fear, Black Rain, Children of Nagasaki, Rhapsody in August, Dr. Strangelove, and Amazing Grace and Chuck.

Rev. Vernon WalkerVernon Walker

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rev. Vernon K. Walker has a B.S. in Organizational Leadership from Penn State and  Masters in Theological Studies from BU School of Theology.  He served as an associate pastor over social action and outreach at the Berachah Church in Dorchester for 3 years under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Keith L. Magee, played an integral role in organizing the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign, and worked as an organizer for the Massachusetts Nurses Association 2018 ballot campaign called the Safe Patient Limit Ballot Initiative.  Rev. Walker is currently organizing with the New Democracy Coalition around the truth and reconciliation project, with one of the goals being to rename Faneuil Hall.

Topics

Political organizing
Faith organizing
Community organizing
Restorative justice
Theology
The role that faith plays in creating world peace
Social justice

Ira Helfand

Ira Helfand, MD is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapon, ICAN, the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, and Immediate Past President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the founding partner of ICAN and itself the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also co-Founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate. He is active in the Back from the Brink campaign. Dr. Helfand was educated at Harvard College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Topics

Medical consequences of nuclear war

Nuclear winter

Nuclear famine

The TPNW

The Back from the Brink campaign