Co-Presidents

Ime John, MD, MPH
IPPNW Co-President
Kano, Nigeria

Dr. John is a general practitioner and consultant in public health with a special interest in injury prevention, small arms and conflict prevention. He joined the Society of Nigerian Doctors for the Welfare of Mankind (SNDWM), Nigerian Affiliate of IPPNW as a medical student in 1989. He served in several capacities before becoming the Vice-President /International Councillor for the Nigerian Affiliate. He was the Vice-President for the African region 2002-2006. Dr. John co-initiated the multinational injury surveillance pilot project that researches injuries related to small arms and hopes to establish surveillance systems in hospitals of participating Countries. Currently, he is a PhD Candidate at the Division of Social Medicine, Department of Public Health of Karolinska Institute; Stockholm where he earned a Master degree and also served as a Visiting Research Scientist in 2004. He has also presented papers at several conferences and is active in other networks.

Sergei Kolesnikov, MD
IPPNW Co-President
Moscow, Russia

Kolesnikov Sergey Ivanovich was born in Armenia on June 1, 1950. Education- Novosibirsk Medical Institute, Ph.D. Member of Russian Parliament (State Duma). 1972-87 positions in Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (Novosibirsk), Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMN), USSR (Russia) from junior researcher to deputy director;1989-92 Member of the USSR Parliament (People's Deputy); 1991-98 and 2008-p.t., co-President. International Physicians for Prevention Nuclear War;1999-p..t., M.P. Russia , Committee for Health Care Deputy Chairman, mem. Edinaya Rossiya (United Russia) faction. Dr. Kolesnikov is the author of more than 300 scientific articles, 19 monographers, 2 textbooks for universities, 15 patents and inventions;Has been awarded with a medal (1971); Lenin Komsomol Prize in the field of science and technology (1984). Hon. Freeman of Detroit, US (1985); Order of the Friendship of Peoples (1986); Orders of Honour (1996, 2007); h.c. degree, Kingston Univ., UK (1998); Distinguished Scientist of Russia. Laureate of Government Prize for Sci. and Technology;
He is married and has 1 daughter and 1 grandson.

Vappu Taipale, MD
IPPNW Co-President
Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Taipale worked as the Director General of the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health (STAKES) from its inception in December 1992 until May 2008 when she retired. Dr. Taipale's area of expertise is in pediatric psychiatry and social welfare.

Regional Vice Presidents

Walter Odhiambo, MD
Regional Vice President --AFRICA
Nairobi, Kenya

Dr. Odhiambo is a lecturer in the department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Nairobi. He joined IPPNW in 1990 as a medical student and has served as International Councilor for Kenya from 1997 to 2006. He has been active in research on armed violence injuries and is currently conducting a 10 year retrospective study on firearm injuries at the Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi. Dr. Odhiambo has been working in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Association and the East Africa Medical Journal to encourage health professionals to document and publish cases of firearm injuries that can influence policy change with regard to laws governing the possession and use of firearms in Kenya. Working with other members of IPPNW-Kenya, Dr. Odhiambo developed the "One Bullet Story" advocacy tool for IPPNW's Aiming for Prevention Campaign. He is a co-investigator of IPPNW's multinational injury study. He is also the Current Chairman of the Kenya Campaign Against Landmines.

Caecilie Buhmann, MD
Regional Vice President -- EUROPE
Copenhagen, Denmark

Dr. Buhmann has been active in IPPNW since 2000. She holds a BSc in Global Health from University College London and a Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from Fordham University in New York. She has served on the board of Danish Physicians Against Nuclear Weapons as a student representative from 2000 till 2005 and is currently the IPPNW International Councilor for Denmark. She served on the IPPNW Board of Directors as International Student representative from 2000 - 2002. She has been a member of the Student Board of Trustees since 2000 and CO-founded the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project in 2001. She served as a coordinator of the project from 2001- 2004. Dr. Buhmann graduated from the Copenhagen University Medical School, Denmark in June 2006.

Jans Fromow-Guerra , MD
Regional Vice President -- LATIN AMERICA
Mexico City, Mexico

Dr. Fromow-Guerra graduated Summa Cum Laude from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Specialization in Ophthalmology and Fellowship in Retina & Vitreous Surgery. Master Degree in Science, Doctoral studies in Clinical Research and Diploma on Strategic Administration & Business. Retina Staff Surgeon at Association for The Prevention of Blindness in Mexico and runs his private practice. Professor at Faculty of Medicine (UNAM) the last 19 years. Belongs to several National and International Scientific Societies and has published up to a dozen of original scientific papers and book chapters.
Dr. Fromow-Guerra involved actively in IPPNW-Mexico as student 1991. Co-organized the student meeting in the IPPNW World Congress in Mexico in 1993, and was elected student on the BoD (1993-1995). Dr Fromow-Guerra's main interests are related to the effects of arms expenditure in health and development, small arms injuries and violence as a problem of public health and the main role of prevention and peace education.

Ahmed Mahmoud Geneid, MD
Regional Co-Vice President -- MIDDLE EAST
Ismailia, Egypt

Dr. Geneid holds a master degree in Phoniatrics which is a subspecialty of Ear, Nose and Throat from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt and works in the city of Ismailia to the east of Egypt. He has been active in IPPNW since 1999 when he was elected as regional students' representative of IPPNW in the Middle East and served on the IPPNW Board of Directors from 2002 till 2004 as the International Student Representative of IPPNW. He co-founded PSR-Egypt which is the Egyptian affiliate of IPPNW in May 1999.

Michael A. Dworkind, MD
Regional Vice President -- NORTH AMERICA
Montreal, Canada

Shizuteru Usui, MD
Regional Vice President -- NORTH ASIA
Hiroshima, Japan

Dr Shizuteru Usui was born in Hiroshima city, and exposed to the Atomic bombing on August 6 in 1945 near his home, about 2.4km from the hypocenter, when he was 8 years old. He joined IPPNW in 1982, and since then he has been an active member.

He was President of Hiroshima City Medical Association from 1998 to 2004, and has been President of Hiroshima Prefectural Medical Association since 2004 as well as President of JPPNW. He is playing an important role for the government project on medical examination of Atomic bomb survivors living in North and South Americas.

While serving as president of HPMA and JPPNW, he is the author of many books, ranging from Samurai (warriors) stories to essays on health and longevity.

He was elected regional Vice President at the 18th IPPNW World Congress in New Delhi in 2008.

Vladimir Garkavenko, MD, PhD, MBA
Regional Vice President -- RUSSIA/CIS
Moscow, Russia

Dr. Vladimir Garkavenko joined IPPNW in the late 80s and took an active part in organizing student projects on both the national and international levels. Since the early 90s, he has been a member of the IPPNW-Russia Board of directors and contributed much in establishing dialogue with the Russian nuclear establishment, provided organizational support to IPPNW-Russia projects, and helped establish cooperative contacts with medical professionals in CIS countries.

Dr. Garkavenko was elected regional Vice President at the 17th IPPNW World Congress in Helsinki in 2006. In this role he hopes to encourage the active participation of individuals and build up and strengthen the network of IPPNW affiliates in the Russia/CIS region. He strongly believes that one of the key issues of IPPNW further development and ability to meet the present-day challenges is to attract and involve younger generation of medical professionals, and to develop and expand medical students' activities.

Livtar Singh Chawla, MD
Regional Vice President -- SOUTH ASIA
Ludhiana, India

Dr. Chawla is a F.A.M.S member, and Senior Vice President for five years and National President of IDPD since 1998. He was also the founding Vice Chancellor of Health Science University in the state of Punjab. And for five years, Dr. Chawla was also the Chairman & member Post Graduate Committee, a member of Executive Committee and Chairman of Ethical & Migration Committee of the Medical Council of India.

He was also the principal for 9 years and Head of Department of Internal Medicine in Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana for 24 years.

Dr. Chawla was awarded the most prestigious award for doctors by the Medical Council of India, the B.C. Roy Award as eminent medical teacher in 1993.

Ruth Mitchell , MD
Regional Vice President -- SOUTHEAST ASIA / PACIFIC
Adelaide, Australia

Dr. Mitchell graduated from Flinders University of South Australia. She became involved in the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW/Australia) in her first year of medical school and joined the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project during the Beijing Congress. As a delegate to Russia in 2005 with the NWIP, Ruth realised how important non-confrontational dialogue is in our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. Dr. Mitchell served as National Student Representative for MAPW from 2005-2007, and represented MAPW at the Alliance Against Uranium, a yearly meeting of environmental and Aboriginal groups. Ruth served as International Student Representative of IPPNW from 2006-2008 on the Board of Directors and on the Executive Committee, and has met with students and doctors in Georgia, Kenya, and Kashmir. Ruth was born in Peru, and has lived in Ecuador, Scotland, Canada, Slovakia, and now Australia. Dr. Mitchell has previous degrees in Political Science and Zoology, and has worked with the Romany Gypsies of Eastern Slovakia. Ruth is passionate about increasing the active involvement of students and doctors at all stages of training in our movement in order to create the climate we need to abolish nuclear weapons and prevent small arms violence. Ruth is presently Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors.

At Large Directors

Khagendra Dahal, MD
Kathmandu, Nepal

Dr. Dahal is currently doing an internship at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) in Nepal. He has been an active member of PSR Nepal and has served on the IPPNW Board as the international student representative (ISR) since 2004. The next two years, his major challenges include utilizing the students' energy and expertise for the larger benefits of the organization with the help of the co-ISR and friend, Ruth Mitchell of Adelaide, Australia. In addition to working with IPPNW, Dr. Dahal has published at least half a dozen articles in international journals including the Lancet, BMJ and PLoS Medical Journal. His publications in the local media include at least fifty articles of different subject matter ranging from peace, health and other social issues. A book he coauthored on the involvement of the medical community in the recent pro-democracy movement in Nepal will soon be published.

Bjørn Hilt, MD
Chair of IPPNW Board
Trondheim, Norway

Dr. Hilt has been a member of the Norwegian affiliate of IPPNW since it was founded in 1982. Since 1998, he has been a board member of that affiliate, and from 1999 to 2004 its leader. From 2004 to 2008, he was the European Regional Vice President of IPPNW, and since September 2006 at the Helsinki World Congress, he was elected chairman of the Board of IPPNW. Dr. Hilt is working as a senior consultant and a professor of occupational medicine at the St. Olav University Hospital in Trondheim, Norway. His main professional interests are in occupational diseases and preventative medicine in general. He is married, has two sons and five grandchildren.

Ron McCoy, MD
Selangor, Malaysia

Tilman Ruff, MB, BS (Hons), FRACP
Victoria, Australia

Tilman Ruff is an infectious diseases and public health physician, with particular interests in immunization, and in the urgent public health imperative to abolish nuclear weapons. He is Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne; Medical Advisor, International Department, Australian Red Cross; and technical advisor, Australian Agency for Internationl Development (AusAID) and UNICEF, on immunization programs in Pacific Island countries. Tilman has been active in the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) for 26 years and is its immediate past President. He has been engaged in IPPNW since 1985, including terms as Asia-Pacific vice president, and Consultant on Policy and Programs, based in Boston. Tilman helped establish the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - ICAN (supported by the Poola Foundation, Tom Kantor Fund), and is chair of the Australian ICAN Management Committee and the IPPNW ICAN Working Group.

Gunnar Westberg, MD
Goteborg, Sweden

Dr. Westberg recently retired as Professor of Medicine and Nephrology at the University of Goteborg, Sweden. His published research has been in the fields of nephrology and immunology, experimentally and clinically. For six years that research was conducted at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He has also lectured and written on international aspects of health and medicine, and on the responsibility of doctors to society.

He joined the Swedish affiliate of IPPNW (SLMK) in 1982 and was president of that affiliate from 1995-2004. Dr. Westberg has contributed many articles on the threat of and consequences of nuclear war, mostly to newspapers in Sweden. These days, he is particularly interested in the question: Why are there still nuclear weapons, to what need are nuclear weapons the answer? He is married, has three children and three granddaughters. He was the Co-President of IPPNW from 2004 to 2008.

Peter Wilk , MD
Maine, USA

Dr. Wilk has been active with both IPPNW and the US affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), for over 20 years and has served two terms as Speaker of IPPNW's International Council, two terms as North American Co-Vice-President of IPPNW, and two terms as national President of PSR. Dr. Wilk is currently working within ICAN on the connections between U.S. government policies and actions regarding nuclear weapons, international conflict, energy security, and global warming. As a practicing psychiatrist, he is especially interested in how to coordinate public education, media strategies, and direct conversations with policy makers and elected leaders, to persuade them to fundamentally change nuclear weapons policy and energy policy. Employing those strategies, he was a key leader in multi-year campaigns that resulted in cancellation in 2005 of U.S. development of a new nuclear bunker buster weapon and, as of 2008, have blocked development of the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

International Medical Student Representatives (ISR)

Agyeno Ehase
Jos, Nigeria

Agyeno Ehase Sunday is a final year medical student of the University of Jos, who joined IPPNW while in his fourth year in 2005, and has remained active ever since. He served as the editor of the student e-newsletter, Epulse from 2006 to 2008, and is currently serving as Co - International Student Representative (ISR) until 2010. He hopes to use this capacity as ISR to advance the Aiming for Prevention Programme in his country Nigeria, and other countries of the global south where small arms are a menace. Further, he intends to stimulate discussion on issues of nuclear disarmament and nuclear energy among peoples of the global south in general and Nigeria in particular, with the aim of opening their eyes to the inherent dangers and the role they could play towards nuclear disarmament. Student recruitment, motivation and team spirit building with the aim of promoting the core values of IPPNW is a key area of interest, which he aims to explore.




Wenjing Tao
Stockholm, Sweden

Ms. Tao is a fourth year medical student at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She joined the IPPNW in 2005 and served as one of the coordinators of Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project (NWIP) between 2006 and 2008. Within the frame of this project she has worked actively with students from Iran, DPRK, China, USA etc. In the role as ISR, Wenjing intends to continue her work promoting increased awarness on nuclear disarmament amongst students. She would also like to work for enhanced cooperation between IPPNW student movement and other non-governmental student organisations and strengthen the collaboration between students from the global north and global south in joint projects.

Michael Christ
Executive Director
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

As a father, Mr. Christ is worried about the future of his children. As IPPNW's Executive Director, he is convinced that physicians and health workers worldwide have a major role to play in ensuring that coming generations are protected from the effects of war and the threat of nuclear destruction. Mr. Christ joined IPPNW in 1988 with a background in environmental economics and political activism. He describes his visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1989 and to the downwind community of Karaul near the former Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan in 1990, as "life changing." Mr. Christ led IPPNW's World Court Project to persuade the World Health Organization and the United Nations to challenge the legality of nuclear weapons at the International Court of Justice. As Director of Programs from 1996 to 1998, he was responsible for numerous projects and campaigns on nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, and landmines awareness. Mr. Christ was appointed Executive Director in January 1998.

Herman Spanjaard , MD
Speaker of the International Council
Halfweg, The Netherlands

Dr. Spanjaard is an Occupational Health Physician in the Netherlands. He has worked for the Houses of Parliament and several other governmental bodies. He started his own consultancy firm in 1993 and has worked for governments, UN organizations and business. Since 1999, he has been president of IPPNW Netherlands. From 2000-2004 he served two terms as European Vice President and as treasurer of IPPNW. DR Spanjaard is member of the Board of the Hague Appeal for Peace since its beginning (www.haguepeace.org) . Disarmament is a major goal in his life and in his contacts with governments, businesses and media he tries to raise awareness and to look what unites rather than what divides. Dr. Spanjaard is married and has three children.

Ira Helfand, MD
Deputy Speaker IC, Treasurer, Secretary
Massachusetts, USA

Dr. Helfand is a co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), IPPNW's US affiliate. He has spoken widely on the medical effects of nuclear war in the United States, the former Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, and France, and is a co-author of the study "Accidental Nuclear War -- A Post-Cold War Assessment," which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in April, 1998 and of PSR's 2006 report, "The US and Nuclear Terrorism: Still Dangerously Unprepared". Dr. Helfand serves on the committee which oversees PSR's work for nuclear abolition and has a special interest in the danger of accidental war and the need to de-alert nuclear weapons. He is also the author of IPPNW's recent study on nuclear famine, "An Assessment of the Extent of Projected Global Famine Resulting from Limited, Regional Nuclear War".

Andi Nidecker , MD
2010 World Congress Secretary
Basel, Switzerland