The Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament (AMC)

Erik Melander is a professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and the Director of the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament at Uppsala University. His previous positions include Director of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP); core faculty member of the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Program, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; Adjunct Research Professor at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame University, USA; and Visiting Honorary Research Associate at the University of Natal, South Africa.

Erik Melander’s research interests include the causes and dynamics of armed conflict, peace processes, as well as gender. He has experience from research fieldwork in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kenya, Russia, South Africa, Thailand and the Yugoslav Federation. In 1996, he served as 2nd lieutenant with the Swedish peacekeeping forces in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Dr Peter Wallensteen is Senior Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame, USA. He initiated and directed the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), 1978-2015 and was the head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1972-1999. He was the first holder of the Dag Hammarskjöld Chair at Uppsala University, 1985-2012, and of the Richard G. Starmann Chair at University of Notre Dame, 2006-2018. Since 2021 he is Deputy Chair of the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament, Uppsala University and leads its working group on sanctions for prevention of nuclear proliferation.

The volume Peter Wallensteen: A Pioneer in Making Peace Researchable (Springer 2021) explains his involvement in peace research, and presents ten of the major research fields he has contributed to. One deals with experiences of peace agreement and his Understanding Conflict Resolution is now in its 5thedition (2019). Another major field has been the use of sanctions for different purposes, including ending wars and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. He is presently co-editing a book on Alva Myrdal’s contributions to nuclear test bans and non-proliferation.

Dr Isak Svensson is Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, where he teaches and does research on various aspects of conflict resolution.

His research focuses on international mediation in civil wars, religious dimensions of armed conflict, and dynamics of nonviolent civil resistance. His works appear in journal articles published in leading journals such as International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, European Journal of International Relations, International Negotiation, Research and Politics, as well as in book chapters with academic publishers including Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Svensson has been the Director of Research at The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPCS), University of Otago, New Zealand, (2010-2012), and serves as member of the Editorial Committee for Journal of Peace Research and of the Editorial Board of Politics and Religion.

Isak Svensson has served as the at-large Representative in the Governing Council, for International Studies Association (ISA) in 2015-2016. He is a working-group leader of the international working group on international negotiations at the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament at Uppsala University.

His books include The Go-Between: Ambassador Jan Eliasson and the Styles of International Mediation, (co-authored with Peter Wallensteen) United Institute of Peace Press (2010), and Ending Holy Wars: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars, University of Queensland Press (2012), and International Mediation Bias and Peacemaking: Taking sides in civil wars (Routledge, 2015). His most recent book (co-authored) is Confronting the Caliphate: Civil resistance in jihadist proto-states (Oxford University Press, 2022). Isak Svensson was in 2019 awarded The Uppsala University Pedagogical Price 2019 For Social Sciences and Humanities.

Dr Sophie Grape received her PhD in nuclear physics in 2009. She then entered into the field of technical nuclear safeguards as a postdoc at Uppsala University, and continued during a 7-year period as a researcher in the same field. Since 2018, Sophie Grape is working as an Associate Professor at the Division of Applied Nuclear Physics, leading the research group in technical nuclear safeguards comprising PhD-students, postdocs and researchers. Her field of expertise concerns primarily measurement and analysis techniques intended to verify nuclear material such as nuclear fuel, with an emphasis on non-destructive assay techniques. She also has experience of evaluations and assessments aiming to support non-proliferation and safeguards aspects of future nuclear energy systems.

Sophie Grape is since many years an active member of the European Safeguards Research and Development Association (ESARDA) and a previous chair of the working group on Training and Knowledge Management. Sophie Grape is a member of the Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste, which gives advice to the Swedish government on nuclear waste issues. Since 2021, Sophie Grape is also on the board for research issues at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, SSM, and since 2022 on the program council for the new competence center on nuclear technology ANItA (“Academic-Industrial Nuclear Technology Initiative to Achieve a Future Sustainable Energy Supply”) hosted by Uppsala University.

Dr Sibylle Bauer is Director of Studies, Armament and Disarmament at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), with responsibility for SIPRI’s work on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation; dual-use and arms trade control; emerging technologies; and arms production, arms transfer and military expenditure. She is also the current Chair of the EU Non-proliferation and Disarmament Consortium.

Before joining SIPRI in 2003, Dr Sibylle Bauer was a Researcher at the Institute for European Studies (Université libre de Bruxelles) in Brussels. She holds a PhD jointly from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the Free University of Berlin.

Dr Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, and heads the Oslo Nuclear Project. She has previously been a Junior Faculty Fellow at CISAC, Stanford University (2012-13), and a pre- and post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University (2008-10).

Dr Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer received her doctoral degree from London School of Economics in 2010, which received the Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize from BISA the following year. She published Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2016) based on her dissertation research. Her work has been published in numerous outlets including International Security, The Middle East Journal, the New York Times (online), International Herald Tribune, Monkey Cage and War on the Rocks.