Staff
Ward Hayes Wilson, Executive Director
The founder and executive director of RealistRevolt is Ward Wilson. He is widely acknowledged as the leading source of innovative pragmatic arguments against nuclear weapons in the world today.
With more than 30 years of experience working in the field of nuclear weapons, he has deep knowledge of the arguments and players.
He is a prize-winning author who has been widely published and whose writings have been widely covered.
The recipient of a large grant from the foreign ministry of Norway, he traveled and spoke in 23 countries on six continents between 2010 and 2016.
Full bio
At the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry
Shizuka Kuramitsu, Research Fellow, 2023
Shizuka Kuramitsu was born in Hiroshima and grew up surrounded by the echo of nuclear weapons. She is committed to making real progress on nuclear weapons. Shizuka earned a Master of Arts in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Monterey Institute and worked in the summer of 2023 in Geneva at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. She will be working on making short videos that explain aspects of the arguments in Ward’s forthcoming It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons. She will also co-author (with Ward) an in-depth examination of the Emperor’s decision to surrender at the end of World War II.
Mathilde Le Moal, Research Fellow, 2021
Mathilde Le Moal received her Bachelors in Politics and International Relations with an emphasis on the Global Politics of Nuclear Weapons from the University of York in the United Kingdom. She received her Masters in Global Crime, Justice, and Security from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She is currently co-authoring a paper with Ward that demonstrates that Thomas Schelling’s argument in Arms and Influence is doubtful because it lacks factual support.
Sanem Topal, Research Fellow, 2021
Sanem Topal received her undergraduate degree from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey with a 3.76 GPA. She also received her Masters in International Relations from Bilkent University with a 3.80 GPA. She is currently working on an exploration of the way that nuclear weapons serve as a “currency of power,” the history of weapons that serve as currencies of power, and the implications of this symbolic role for our understanding of nuclear weapons.
Abhishek Verma, Research Fellow, 2021
Abhishek is a PhD student at New Delhi University, with an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in foreign policy. He is currently at work on his thesis and is working on a paper for RealistRevolt that raises doubts about the claim that nuclear weapons create stability in a crisis.
Sarah McCausland Memorial Intern, Summer 2018
Lauren Holly is a senior at the University of Minnesota. A technical writing and communica-tions major, she is excited about work that will “shine a light on a crucial subject that is too often overlooked.”
Tucker Murray, Research Fellow 2015-2016
Tucker Murray is a graduate of Kings College London with a masters in Science and Security. He has written on the connection between climate change and the prospects for war and the historical difficulty of using bombing to “force surrender.”