Ricky Clousing is an artist, community activist, and war resister. He operated as an interrogator in the 82nd Airborne Division and later refused to serve after witnessing abuses of power while deployed in Iraq. This crisis of conscience ultimately led Clousing to go AWOL, which resulted in his court-martial and a three month sentence in military prison. Once released, he became an outspoken voice against the war in Iraq. Frustrated with a top down approach to change, Ricky withdrew from political activism and found peace through practicing permaculture and healing his own individual relationship to the land. He is Lakota, his mother a member of the Standing Rock Tribe, and stands in solidarity with water protectors everywhere. In 2016, he graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in sustainable urban development and currently works for the City of Tacoma as a development specialist. His art and social activism explores our relationship to the environment. He is passionate about community building and connecting people to nature. Ricky’s art will be featured next September 9 - 19th at https://bellwetherart.org/
Martha Hennessy, seventh grandchild of Dorothy Day, is currently in home detention for her 10-month sentence for the Kings Bay Plowshares action (protesting nuclear weapons) April 4th, 2018 in southern Georgia.
She is 66, a retired occupational therapist, and grandmother of eight. Martha has also been imprisoned for protesting war and nuclear power, the use of drones, and the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo.
She has traveled to Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Korea, and Palestine to understand the effects of United States military policy and war in other countries.
Martha travels and speaks on the topics of life and work in community, Catholic Social Teaching, nuclear abolition, and peacemaking efforts in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement.
Lindsay Koshgarian is the program director for the National Priorities Project. Lindsay’s work and commentary on the federal budget and military spending has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Nation, U.S. News and World Report, and others. At NPP, her work is at the intersection of military and domestic federal spending. She got her start as a clinic worker and organizer at Planned Parenthood in central and suburban Philadelphia, and led economic development and affordable housing studies at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute prior to joining NPP in 2014.
Lindsay Koshgarian’s research interests include education and workforce spending, social insurance and entitlement spending, debt and deficits, and tax policy and revenue generation. Lindsay comes to NPP from the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute, where she led economic studies on workforce and education, housing markets and affordable housing, and federal and state spending initiatives, including Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security spending in New England. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from UCLA.
Cynthia Lazaroff is the founder of NuclearWakeUpCall.Earth. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and author of Dawn of a New Armageddon, a personal account of the Hawaii missile scare amidst escalating nuclear dangers, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Hiroshima Day.
Cynthia is engaged in Track II citizen diplomacy and mediation efforts with Russia and has founded groundbreaking U.S.-Russian exchange initiatives since the early 1980s. She is the Senior Creative Producer for U.S.-Russia Relations: Quest for Stability, a seven-part documentary series supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Executive Producer of Mourning Armageddon, a music video featuring Hawaii artist and activist Makana, filmed in a Cold War nuclear bomb shelter near the Kremlin. Cynthia also co-wrote the story for Showtime's award-winning mini-series, Hiroshima, and co-produced the prize-winning The Challenge of the Caucasus, featuring the first joint ascent of Mount Elbrus, Europe's highest peak (18,481'), by Soviet and American youth whom she co-led to the summit.
Cynthia is dedicated to catalyzing efforts in U.S.-Russia relations to reduce the nuclear risk and to working with people in Russia and all countries to move towards a world without nuclear weapons. She is convening Bering Strait for Peace, a gathering of indigenous peoples from Russia and the U.S. in the Bering Strait, and Women Transforming Our Nuclear Legacy, an international online mentoring program to empower women to transform our nuclear legacy and build a global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
Cynthia previously served as Director of Creative Affairs at Armand Hammer Productions where she supervised the development of feature film and television projects including Mother Russia, an eight-hour mini-series for HBO and The Cuban Missile Crisis, a four-hour mini-series for NBC. An adviser and consultant on numerous Russian-related film and television projects, Cynthia has extensive experience in negotiations and film production in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
In 1983, at the height of Cold War tensions, Cynthia co-founded and served as Executive Director of the US-USSR Youth Exchange Program where she pioneered exchanges in the fields of art, literature, theater, education, film, sports, wilderness adventures, urban leadership and environmental service. Cynthia is a magna cum laude graduate in Politics and Russian Studies from Princeton University.
Terri Roben is a singer/songwriter from the New York Capital District. She has performed in restaurants, festivals, cafes, rallies, picket lines, environmental fairs, demonstrations, libraries, schools, weddings, parties and select benefits. She plays guitar, banjo, violin, ukelele, and mountain dulcimer. She produced three recordings, "Terri and Maria", with Maria Caccavo; "Riverwalk & Other Songs" a cd of original children's music; and "The Path We Make", a cd of mostly original songs, accompanied by The Ramblin Jug Stompers, Sten Isachsen and Gail Smallwood. She has performed in schools, family programs, library programs for pre-school and elementary school children. She has sung as a solo, and in choirs, duos, trios and quartets. Roben/Kosek Jazz & Blues (rkjazzandblues.com) is her latest working band, joined by jazz guitarist MaryAnn Kosek, bassist/vocalist Brenda Fisher, and when requested, others on keyboard, saxophone and drums.
She is a member of the Albany Musicians Union, Local #13, the People's Music Network (peoplesmusic.org) and The Children's Music Network (cmnonline.org).
Carole Sargent, PhD, is an associate of the Sacred Heart and founding faculty director of Georgetown University's Office of Scholarly Publications. She helped RSCJ sisters establish Anne Montgomery House in Washington, DC, where Megan Rice, SHCJ, was a neighbor and friend.
All proceeds from her forthcoming book Transform Now Plowshares: Megan Rice, Gregory Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli (Liturgical Press 2022) will go to the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, DC.
With Drew Christiansen, SJ, she co-edited A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020), and she published previous books with Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She writes from a contemplative scholars' house she founded (www.publishingadvising.com/house).
Greta Zarro is World BEYOND War's Organizing Director. She has a background in issue-based community organizing. Her experience includes volunteer recruitment and engagement, event organizing, coalition building, legislative and media outreach, and public speaking.
Greta graduated as valedictorian from St. Michael’s College with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology. She previously worked as New York Organizer for leading non-profit Food & Water Watch. There, she campaigned on issues related to fracking, genetically engineered foods, climate change, and the corporate control of our common resources. Greta and her partner run Unadilla Community Farm, a non-profit organic farm and permaculture education center in West Edmeston, NY.
Dr Joseba Zulaika is Professor Emeritus at the Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. He received an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain) and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Princeton University.
During the course of his studies, Dr. Zulaika has published ethnographies of deep-sea fishermen, farmers, soldiers, underground militants, hunters, artists, and the city of Bilbao. He has published extensively on terrorism and counterterrorism, including Basque Violence: Metaphor and Sacrament; Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism (with William Douglass); Terrorism: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, as well as numerous articles on the culture of violence, terrorism, and peace-building. His latest book is Hellfire from Paradise Ranch: On the Front Lines of Drone Warfare.