Co-Presidents

Sergei Kolesnikov, MD
IPPNW Co-President
Moscow, Russia

Dr. Kolesnikov 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-present, Co-President of PNND 2008-present. 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 monographs, two university textbooks, 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 Science and Technology; He is married and has 1 daughter and 1 grandson.

Robert Mtonga, MD
IPPNW Co-President
Lusaka, Zambia

Dr. Mtonga is a general practitioner with a special interest in diabetes, injury prevention, and health and development issues. He serves as an expert advisor on numerous international boards and is a member of organizations involved in the areas of the prevention and banning of landmines and other ordnances in Africa, as well as the control of small arms and weaponry. Since he founded the Zambia Campaign to Ban Landmines in 1996, Dr. Mtonga has extensively engaged with governments throughout Africa on the landmine issue. He provides research on Zambia for the Landmine Monitor, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines’ (ICBL) global monitoring initiative, and is a member of the Zambian National Committee Against Landmines. Dr. Mtonga has been a consultant to many international organizations documenting injuries from violence, and has collaborated with the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease and Violence and Injury Prevention initiatives; Gun-Free South Africa and the Center for Conflict Resolution of South Africa; and Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, profiling the costs of small arms injuries to the health system in Zambia. Dr. Mtonga speaks and writes widely on health, development, violence and war prevention issues from a public health perspective.

Vappu Taipale, MD
IPPNW Co-President
Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Vappu Taipale worked as the Director General of the Helsinki-based 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. She is the author of several books and textbooks on social and health policy and child and adolescent mental health. She has held numerous senior appointments in her native Finland, the European Union and the United Nations system related to health and social development. From 1982-1983 she served as Minister of Health of Finland and Minister of Social Affairs from 1983-1984.

Regional Vice Presidents

Daniel Bassey, MD
Regional Vice President -- AFRICA
Jos, Nigeria

Dr. Bassey joined IPPNW as a medical student. He served as a student project coordinator in the International Multi-injury Surveillance Project and One Bullet Stories, and also as a regional coordinator for IFMSA and on the board of the Nigerian affiliate. He is currently part of the Aiming for Prevention working committee. Dr. Bassey also believes that nuclear famine is a plausible threat that could effect the health and livelihood of everyone, including people in nuclear-weapons-free countries like Nigeria.

Lars Pohlmeier, MD
Regional Vice President -- EUROPE
Bremen, Germany

Dr. Lars Pohlmeier is an internist in Bremen working in the Medical Practice Melcherstaette in Bremen-Brinkum. Dr Pohlmeier, born in 1969, studied journalism and medicine at the university of Hamburg with additional medical university education in Paris, St. Petersburg and Boston. Dr. Pohlmeier served as the Co-Executive director of IPPNW Germany. He has served the national German and the international IPNW board since the beginning of his student times in 1991. Dr. Pohlmeier is a member of the editorial board of Medicine, Conflict and Survival, a dedicated journal to IPPNW. 

Antonio Jarquin, MD
Regional Vice President -- LATIN AMERICA
Managua, Nicaragua

Ahmed Saada, MD
Regional Vice President -- MIDDLE EAST
Egypt

Ira Helfand, MD
Regional Vice President -- NORTH AMERICA
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".

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 has been an active member of IPPNW since 1982.

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 has written several books, ranging from stories on Samurai (warriors) to essays on health and longevity.

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

Armais A. Kamalov, MD
Regional Vice President -- RUSSIA/CIS
Moscow, Russia

Asoka Hettiarachchi, MD
Regional Vice President -- SOUTH ASIA
Sri Lanka

Dr. Asoka Hettiarachchi chose the medical profession because it alleviates human suffering and believes that if he can help to eradicate the root causes of suffering that it would be his greatest achievement. Dr. Hettiarachchi first got involved in IPPNW at a conference held in New Delhi in February of 2002. Soon after that conference, he organized a South Asian conference in Kandy, Sri Lanka to officially form the IPPNW affiliate, the Sri Lankan Doctors for Peace and Development.

Tilman Ruff, MB, BS (Hons), FRACP
Regional Vice President -- SOUTHEAST ASIA / PACIFIC
Victoria, Australia

Tilman Ruff is an infectious diseases and public health physician, committed to the urgent public health imperative to abolish nuclear weapons, and to vaccines and immunisation. He is Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Tilman contributed to the development of travel medicine; worked on hepatitis B control, immunisation and maternal and child health in Indonesia and Pacific island countries; and documented the link between nuclear testing and outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning in the Pacific. He is Australian Red Cross international medical advisor and provides technical advice on immunisation for WHO, UNICEF, AusAID and vaccine manufacturers.

He has been active in the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) since 1982 and a past national President; and is South-east Asia Pacific vice-president of IPPNW. In 2008-10 he was an NGO Advisor to the Co-chairs, International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Tilman chairs the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

At Large Directors

Vladimir Garkavenko, MD PhD MBA
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.

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.

Andrew S. Kanter, MD MPH
New York, NY, USA

Dr. Kanter has been involved with IPPNW since 1985 when he was appointed as the first full-time Medical Student Liaison. He has participated in numerous Congresses and has participated in board meetings both as an At Large Member, and as an observer for nearly a decade. Dr. Kanter is currently the director of Health Information Systems/Medical Informatics for the Millennium Villages Project for the Earth Institute at Columbia University as well as a Asst. Prof. for Clinical Biomedical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia.

He travels globally, and has first hand experience of the effects of militarism on development and the environment: "I believe that IPPNW represents a unique opportunity for a group of like-minded people to focus the world’s attention on the greatest threats to our global survival. Physicians are perfectly suited to provide an alternative, positive vision for our future, and we can provide the crucial movement necessary to help guide the planet away from violence and the threat of nuclear annihilation, to a future based on mutual security, common survival and sustainable development."

Arun Mitra, MD
Ludhiana, India

Andi Nidecker , MD
Basel, Switzerland

Dr. Nidecker completed his postgraduate education in the US and in Switzerland. Experienced as General Practitioner in Colombia, South America and Jamaica. Trained and received the Diploma of the American Board of Radiology at the University of Toronto / Canada. In 1999, he became the associate professor or Radiology at University of Basel.

Dr. Nidecker is a specialist in diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and MRIs, and is also the Co-Founder and partner of a larger private group practice in Basel with a teaching position at the University of Basel. Member of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the American College of Radiology (ACR), the Swiss Medical Association, the Swiss Association for Medical Radiology, the International Skeletal Society. Professional interests: bone tumors.

From 2008-2010, Dr. Nidecker served on the IPPNW Board as the head of the organizing committee of the 2010 IPPNW World Congress. He has been active in IPPNW since the mid Eighties and was President of the Swiss affiliate for a number of years. Also president of "Sun21 - energy and resources", a Basel based association to promote energy conservation and the use of renewables, co-founded with Martin Vosseler, the founder of PSR / IPPNW Switzerland.

Wenjing Tao, MD
Goteborg, Sweden

Dr. Tao graduated from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She joined the Swedish affiliate of IPPNW (SLMK) in 2005. Since then, she has served as international coordinator of Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project (NWIP) from 2006-2008, and as international student representative from 2008-2010 on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. She has worked actively with students from the global north and global south on nuclear disarmament, including organizing youth delegations to Iran, China, DPRK, USA etc. Alongside her work with Dr. Hilt as Vice Chair of the Board, Dr. Tao will continue to support the student movement and young doctors in training. She is currently developing a mentorship program intending to bolster the communication between younger and senior members of IPPNW, in order to strengthen the organization from inside. 

International Medical Student Representatives (ISR)

Leila Moein
Iran






Ogebe Onazi, MBBS
Nigeria

Mr. Onazi graduated from medical school in June 2010 and has been active within IPPNW since 2005. He served as the Secretary of the IPPNW African Student Congress in 2005 and from 2006-2008, served as the National Student Representative for Nigeria and as the Regional Co-Student Representative of Africa from 2008-2010. In 2009, Mr. Onazi was one of the coordinators of the IPPNW Radio Show in Nigeria. He is committed to student recruitment campaigns, solidifying commitments among student members, collaborating with other youth groups and bridging the North-South divide. He sees IPPNW and its campaigns, such as Aiming for Prevention, as an important avenue to press for peace.

Ex Officio Members

Michael Christ
Executive Director
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. 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. In 2011, Dr. Spanjaard was knighted for his services to the Dutch affiliate of IPPNW (NVMP) and to education and art.

Kati Juva, MD
Deputy Speaker IC
Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Juva has been a member of PSR-Finland since its beginning in 1982, has served as the chairperson for 12 years and is currently the chair of its peace group. Dr. Juva has two adopted children from Ethiopia.

Jiro Yanagida , MD
2010 World Congress Organizing Committee President
Hiroshima, Japan

Dr. Yanagida was born in 1953 as a second generation A-bomb survivor in Hiroshima. He is a vice director of a general hospital in Hiroshima whose specialty is pulmonology, and also a board member of the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical Association (HPMA), in charge of the Japanese affiliate of IPPNW (JPPNW). He is a visiting lecturer in the department of public health at the Hiroshima University School of Medicine. He lectures on the medical consequences of the A-bomb disaster as well as the activity of IPPNW. Dr. Yanagida is also the chief executive secretary of the Hiroshima International Council for Health Care of the Radiation Exposed (HICARE). He is also involved in the biennial project, established by HPMA in 1977, that does medical check ups of A-bomb survivors living in North and South America.