SESSION 7A:
Transnational Cooperation 

The Fellowship Auditorium

• Prof John Blaxland and Clare Birgin
  Dr John Blaxland is Director of the Australian National University (ANU) North America Liaison Office and Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific at the ANU.  He is the first Australian recipient of a US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative grant (2015-18). He is the author of numerous books on military history, intelligence and international security issues, including Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber . He is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He is a former military intelligence officer and has previously been a Chief Intelligence Staff Officer (J2) at HQ Joint Operations Command, defence attaché to Thailand and Myanmar, exchange officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington DC, Head of SDSC and Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute. At ANU, he teaches “Honeypots and Overcoats: Australian Intelligence in the World” and supervises several PhD students. 
  Clare Birgin is a former Australian diplomat whose work focused on national security and intelligence. She had postings in Warsaw, Moscow, Geneva, and Washington DC as the Liaison Officer of the Office of National Assessments, followed by postings as Ambassador in Hungary, Serbia, Kosovo, Romania, North Macedonia and Montenegro. She has been awarded the Polish Government’s Knight’s Cross Medal and the Bene Merito Medal by the former Polish Foreign Minister.

• Dr Niccolò Petrelli
  Niccolò Petrelli is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Sciences, Roma Tre University where he teaches Strategic Studies. Previously he held positions in various academic and military institutions in Italy and abroad: he was Eisenhower Defense Fellow at the NATO Defense College, post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leeds, visiting scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Herzliya, and military researcher at the Military Center for Strategic Studies within the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (CASD). He has also conducted research on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Joint Defense Staff and other public institutions. Niccolò received his PhD in Political Science at Roma Tre University in 2013. His works have been published, among others, in The Journal of Strategic Studies, Intelligence & National Security, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Small Wars & Insurgencies, the International History Review, the Italian Review of International History, and IAI Papers. He is the author of three monographs: Israel, Strategic Culture and the Conflict with Hamas: Adaptation and Military Effectiveness, 1987-2014, Deterrence in the 21st Century and Grand Strategy and the Future of the US-China Competition.

• Vanessa Falcone
  Vanessa Falcone is a historical researcher in intelligence history. She is currently working on her Master’s in International Relations and War at King’s College London.

SESSION 7B:
American Intelligence

Room 2

• Dr Jeffrey Rogg
  Jeff Rogg is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute. Previously, Jeff was an assistant professor at Joint Special Operations University and The Citadel. He was also a postdoctoral teaching and research fellow at the U.S. Naval War College. He currently sits on the boards of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence and the Society for Intelligence History. Jeff’s book, The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in spring 2025.
• Ronan Mainprize
  Ronan Mainprize is a PhD Candidate at the University of Warwick and a Guest Teacher at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on intelligence and US foreign policy. Ronan is currently completing his doctoral dissertation on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s relationship with the CIA and his use of intelligence to manage international crises during the global Cold War. His academic work has been published in Intelligence and National Security and the Journal of Intelligence History, while his writing has also featured in War on the Rocks, Engelsberg Ideas, The National Interest, and elsewhere. Ronan is a Carnegie IPSCON Junior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, and he will be joining the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication later this year as an Ax:son Johnson Postdoctoral Fellow.
• Prof Richard Damms
  Richard V. Damms is currently at Mississippi State University as an Associate Professor of American History and a member of the Empire, Power, Identity and Conflict (EPIC) faculty. He is the author of two books: The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-1961; and Scientists and Statesmen: Eisenhower’s Science Advisers and National Security Policy.  He co-edited, with Mary Kathryn Barbier, Culture, Power, and Security: New Directions in the History of National and International Security. He has published articles and essays on science, technology and national security in the Cold War and the Eisenhower era more generally.

SESSION 7C:
Freezing the Cold War – Stories of Soviet Espionage

Room 6

• Dr Ksensia Wesolowska
  Dr Ksenia Wesolowska is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. Currently, her research focuses on both historical and contemporary intelligence studies, with an emphasis on Eastern Bloc operations in the Middle East. Her research investigates the interplay between secret intelligence processes, espionage, and international history. Ksenia is in the process of writing a book that evaluates Soviet Bloc’s operations in Turkey during the 1970s and 1980s. She holds a PhD in International History from the University of Nottingham.
• Carrissa Anderson
  Carrissa Anderson is a second-year PhD candidate in the School of History at the University of Leeds. Born in California, Carrissa earned her B.A. at the University of California, Santa Cruz and her M.A. at Howard University in Washington, DC (both in History). Her progressing doctoral thesis that is provisionally titled “The FBI’s ‘Stay-Behind Program’ and US Intelligence During the 1950s” focuses on the State of
  Alaska’s defensive capabilities during the early Cold War.
• Dr Daniel Salisbury
  Dr Daniel Salisbury is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Science & Security Studies (CSSS) within the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He is also an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Dr Salisbury previously held positions at CSSS, the Henry L Stimson Center, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He is the author, co-editor, and co-author of three books and 20 journal articles. 

SESSION 8A:
Collecting and Using SIGINT in the Second World War 

The Fellowship Auditorium

• John Tokar
  John A. Tokar has been the chief of the National Security Agency’s Center for Cryptologic History (CCH) since 2016. Prior to joining CCH, he served in a variety of cyberspace operations assignments at NSA, US Cyber Command, and its predecessor organizations. He is a retired US Army officer with an extensive background in strategic planning, logistics, and special operations, to include two command assignments. He holds degrees from Virginia Tech, Syracuse University, and the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). While in the Army, he spent three years with the Center of Military History (CMH), contributing to official histories, field programs, and the US Army museum system. During that time, he deployed to Afghanistan as US Special Operations Command’s field historian in 2004, where he conducted hundreds of oral history interviews of special operations and intelligence community personnel.

• Steve Jaskoski
  Steve Jaskoski retired from the National Security Agency in 2021 after a career of nearly 40 years in a variety of roles, including intelligence analysis, collection management, watch operations, support to military operations, foreign relations, and cybersecurity.  Recent assignments before his retirement included liaison to the US National Security Council (NSC) Cyber and Resilience Directorates, and to the US Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Jaskoski holds a Master of Science in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College, a Master of Arts in European Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a certificate in Cybersecurity Strategy and Policy from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.  His undergraduate degree was in history from Vanderbilt University.   

• Dr Matthew Hefler
  Dr Matthew Hefler is a specialist of international history and intelligence history. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy based at the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication at the Stockholm School of Economics. At the AJI, Matthew organized the Ax:son Johnson Foundation’s Intelligence and Security Seminar 2023 on the theme of “Intelligence, Communication and Contemporary Conflict” and serves as Co-Course Director of the CSSC’s flagship academic programme, “Applied History 767: World Order and Present Challenges”. Matthew’s research examines the role of secret intelligence and security services in international diplomacy. He received his PhD in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, where his work examined espionage and clandestine diplomacy in Franco-British relations during the Second World War. His doctoral research was shortlisted for the Michael Dockrill Prize in International History from the British International History Group (BIHG). At KCL, Matthew was a Commonwealth Scholar and a Rotary International Global Grant Scholar (Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution). His research can be found in Intelligence and National Security and Engelsberg Ideas. At the AJI his research examines the role of secret intelligence, clandestine diplomacy and the concept of “shared secrecy” in relations between the USA, Great Britain and France after WWII. Matthew is a member of the board of the Society for Intelligence History. He was a lead organizer of NASIH’s conference in Calgary in 2023 and is a member of the organizing committee for SIH’s conference to be held in February 2025 at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

SESSION 8B:
Historical Scholarship: Fresh Perspectives 

Room 2

• Dr Marta Garcia-Cabrera
  Marta García-Cabrera has a PhD in History from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; the University of La Laguna; the Universidade da Madeira (Portugal) and Universidade dos Açores (Portugal). Her main lines of research are the analysis of propaganda and intelligence services during the first half of the 20th century. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the ULPGC, Honorary Researcher at the University of Kent (UK) and, in addition, she has just completed a two-year research stay at Frëie Universitat of Berlin (Germany). Marta García has published in impact journals such as Intelligence and National Security, War & Society, and War in History, among others. Additionally, she is the author of books such as Bajo las Zarpas del León, Propaganda and Neutrality and Deutsche auf den Inseln! Consulting declassified material from the national archives available in Madrid, Berlin, London and Washington D.C., the researcher has revealed the role of propaganda and foreign intelligence in Spain during the First and the Second World War. Furthermore, García-Cabrera has given special attention to the analysis of the modern history of the Canary Islands. Together with researchers such as Emilio Grandío Seoane and Carlos Píriz González, Marta García Cabrera is co-founder and promoter of the Spanish Network of Historical Intelligence Studies (RESHINT), created in 2023 with the objective of promoting critical research on intelligence, (mis) information, and espionage in a historical perspective.
• Aidan Jones
  Aidan Jones is a doctoral research student in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London. His research lies in the field of diplomatic and political-cultural history, as well as the history of the monarchy in the long nineteenth century.  
• Matthew Day-Lopes
  Matthew Day-Lopes is a 4th-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, Canada, studying an honors degree in both Computer and Political Science. His research interests focus on the application of relevant theories and techniques in International Relations, Game Theory, Complex Networks, and Data Science. At York University, also in Toronto, Canada, he serves as an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the York Centre for Asian Research where he studies the intersection of religious violence and separatist movements agitated by geopolitical conflict. He has previously presented his research at the University of Toronto Trinity-IID Intelligence and Security conference where he gave a presentation titled: “Breaking Barriers, Building Threats: Security Implications of Open Science” on the rising counter-proliferation threat presented by the distribution of disruptive technologies over the internet. Currently, he is employed by the Government of Canada, where he works on developing machine learning solutions for a variety of clients’ toughest problems.

SESSION 8C:
Non-Traditional Intelligence Units and Methods 

Room 6

• Dave Roberts
  David A. Roberts, BSc, C.Ed. FINS, has always had a love of history and particularly military history. A former History teacher, with over 25 years teaching experience, Dave also has experience in heritage management, tour guiding and living history. Dave’s interest in 30 AU was sparked over 10 years ago when he read Nick Rankin’s book on the unit. Since then his interest has continued to grow, becoming possibly the leading expert on the unit’s history. Through detailed research, he has uncovered new information and stories, as well as running online groups and websites about the unit. Dave has appeared on several video episodes and podcasts and is currently working on a new book on the unit. 
• Ian Anderson
  Dr. Anderson is a retired general and trauma surgeon who also had a career in the Canadian Forces Medical Services achieving the rank of colonel. With an active interest in history, Dr. Anderson witnessed the Cold War first-hand with the Canadian Army in Germany but subsequently spent one- and one-half years in Bosnia, a short posting to Somalia, as senior medical staff officer with the Transition Mission in Haiti and finally, 10 months as a surgeon at the Canadian and American Field Hospitals at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. As an observer, clinician, and in various leadership roles he became aware of many opportunities for medical services to participate in intelligence in support of the overall mission. There were several barriers to this and, of course, there are some potentially dangerous and unethical dark sides to such professional support of intelligence operations. In retirement, Dr. Anderson teaches trauma courses and surgery to medical students and residents, and enjoys reading and presenting history topics. 
• Dr Nicholas Reynolds
  Nicholas Reynolds is an independent scholar with extensive military and civil service, as well as strong academic qualifications. From 2010 to 2015, he worked as the Contract Historian at the CIA Museum and, from 2004 to 2007, occupied the Chair of National Intelligence at the US Naval War College. He previously served in USMC as an infantry officer and official historian, ending with the enviable title of Officer-in-Charge of Field History.  He is the author of numerous publications, including Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence, a New Yorker “Best of 2022” Selection, and Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961, a New York Times bestseller. He holds a DPhil in History from the University of Oxford.