Executive Office

Michael Christ
Executive Director

As a father, Michael 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. Michael joined the organization 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." Michael 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 and disarmament and helped to launch IPPNW's landmines campaign. Michael was appointed Executive Director in January 1998.

Administration and Finance Department

Douglas Kline
Director of Administration
and Finance

Doug has dedicated his career to working for social justice and human rights organizations. Beginning in the 1970s, he worked as a neighborhood organizer and community activist, eventually gravitating to financial and administrative management positions in nonprofit advocacy organizations. Prior to coming to IPPNW, Doug served as the Director of Finance and Administration at Shelter, Inc. in Cambridge, MA, an organization that runs homeless shelters and transitional housing programs. For nine years before that, he served as Controller at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, an international human rights organization with grassroots development programs in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. In 1997 he assumed the position of Director of Finance and Administration at IPPNW. Doug has a Master's in NGO Management from Lesley University.

Development Department

Daniel Karp
Director of Development

Daniel comes to IPPNW in the middle stages of his career in Non Profit Development and Marketing. His knowledge of charitable activities and Non Profit management began while a student at the University of Oregon, where he learned and became familiar with the vital role contributors and supporters play in the success of charitable missions. After his education, Daniel began fundraising for First Night, Inc., a Boston based Community Arts Organization. Moving from the arts to patient services, Daniel began a 2 year journey with the Ellie Fund, a Breast Cancer Charity in Massachusetts. Above all Daniel believes, "any world worth working in, needs to be a world worth living in first.

Program Department

John Loretz
Program Director

John's career working on behalf of peace, disarmament, and environment organizations spans more than two decades. As IPPNW's Program Director he is responsible for shaping and coordinating the federation's nuclear weapons abolition campaigns, providing issue analysis, policy guidance, and advocacy support to affiliate groups and activists. He has joined physician delegations in London, Paris, and Moscow as an adviser on nuclear weapons and disarmament, and has written and spoken extensively on the issues. He is the Executive Editor of IPPNW's journal, Medicine & Global Survival, and helped edit the book Humanitarian Crises: The Medical and Public Health Response, published in 1999 by Harvard University Press. A graduate of Boston College with an MA from the University of Virginia, John was Communications Director for Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the early 1980s and at IPPNW's US affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility, in Washington, DC, from 1986-1990.

Maria Valenti
Campaign Coordinator, Aiming For Prevention

Maria has worked on peace, justice, and environment and health issues for many years and in many capacities. As coordinator since 1994 of IPPNW's small arms and violence prevention campaign,"Aiming For Prevention,"she helps develp and execute program goals, and provides support to IPPNW affiliates addressing the public health consequences and human suffering of armed violence, particularly in the Global South. This support includes communications, conference organizing, fundraising, development of campaign materials, facilitation of research and publishing of findings, and other assistance to affiliates conducting research, education, policy development, and care and rehabilitatino related to small arms violence. She helped establish the International Action Network on Small Arms Public Health Network. She works with other international organizations including the World Health Organization's Violence Prevention Alliance to help educate medical professionals on violence prevention and help steer global policies toward the goal of reducing small arms violence. She has also worked for 14 years with Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility (GBPSR), the first chapter of IPPNW's US affiliate PSR, currently as GBPSR's executive director. Maria is a co-author of Generations at Risk:Reproductive Health and the Environment and In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Develpoment, and has develped nationwide training programs for health professional on environment and health topics.

Aki Morizono
Communications Associate

Aki coordinates the streams of communication (website, listservs, web2.0 tools) essential to an international federation, and is also the editor and designer of IPPNW's international newsletter, Vital Signs, which is distributed twice a year. Her intention is to increase affiliate members' access to information that will support them in living lives of local and global engagement. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies from Lewis and Clark College and studied graphic design at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Tad Daley
IPPNW Writing Fellow

Tad Daley is a political author, an international policy analyst, and an activist for enduring world peace. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science, a master's degree in international studies, a Ph.D. in public policy analysis ... and a law degree to fall back on if neocon Republicans stay in power forever. He's served as a political advisor to Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-Cal, 2001-Present), the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston (D-Cal, 1969-1993), and Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio, 1997-Present). He ran for U.S. Congress himself in a 2001 special election to represent mid-city Los Angeles. He spent many years at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, the world's oldest and largest think tank. He focuses his research, writing, and advocacy on abolishing nuclear weapons, ending genocide forever, and reinventing the United Nations. He's published about 75 newspaper, magazine, and journal articles on positive future visions and the politics of hope (daleyplanet.org).