Continuing Professional Education

Dr. Chad Briggs is a Minerva Defense Fellow and the U.S.A.F. Chair for Energy and Environmental Security at Air University. At U.S.A.F.’s Air University, he leads the Minerva program’s efforts on research scenario planning for PACOM and NATO, in cooperation with the Spaatz Center and Air Force Research Institute. He is also a consultant with Global Interconnections LLC, senior fellow with the Institute for Environmental Security, and adjunct faculty at Carleton University. In the past he has been a faculty member in California and Pennsylvania, a Fulbright professor in Budapest and Berlin, and a visiting scholar at University College-London in the UK. Dr. Briggs went to the Air University from the U.S. Department of Energy, where he served as team leader under IN-40 (EESD) and was senior advisor for international security affairs. Dr. Briggs has published extensively on a broad range of topics related to environmental security, including academic research articles on environmental risk mitigation and assessment, and a range of subjects from climate change to risk assessment to epidemiology, geography, and strategic intelligence. Dr. Briggs has a Ph.D. in political science from Carleton University in Canada and has also studied in the United States, Norway, Hungary, Ireland, France and Serbia.

Dr. Christian Burgsmüeller is a career EU diplomat with the European External Action Service (EEAS) and currently serves as counselor at the EU Delegation to the United States in Washington D.C., where he heads the Energy, Transport and Environment Section.

Having studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau, Geneva and Cologne, Dr. Burgsmüeller worked as a trainee solicitor in Düsseldorf, Brussels, Cologne and Buenos Aires before passing the German bar exam in 2000. He then joined the European Commission in Brussels as a career official. Over the following six years he held posts both in the commission's Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry as well as in the Directorate-General for Trade. From 2006 till 2010 he headed the Political, Economic and Public Affairs section of the EU delegation to Brazil in Brasilia. Dr. Burgsmüeller holds a Ph.D. in constitutional law from the University of Cologne and has been a visiting lecturer on EU and German politics at Sciences Po Paris and the University of Sao Paulo.

Dr. Simon Dalby, professor of geography, environmental studies and political economy at Carleton University, is coeditor of Rethinking Geopolitics (Routledge 1998), The Geopolitics Reader (Routledge 1998, 2006), the journal Geopolitics, and author of Creating the Second Cold War (Pinter and Guilford, 1990), Environmental Security (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) and Security and Environmental Change (Polity, 2009).

Dr. W. Christopher King serves as the chief academic officer for the United States Army’s Command and General Staff College. He was commissioned into the Ordnance Corps in 1972 after completing his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Tennessee Technological University. He completed his M.S. in civil engineering (environmental) and entered active duty as a sanitary engineer in the Medical Service Corps. His assignments include: project manager and assistant division commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Division, Huntsville, Ala.; chief, Environmental Health Engineering Division, US Army Environmental Hygiene Activity-West, Aurora, Colo.; officer in charge of the Southwest Asia Health Risk Assessment Team, which determined health risk to U.S. troops exposed to the smoke from the Kuwait oil fires and to support the restoration of Kuwait; professor of environmental engineering at the United States Military Academy; professor and head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the United States Military Academy; medical officer planner to the Army Chief of Staff’s crisis action team for the Rwanda relief mission; and Office of Military Cooperation to assist in the development of the new Afghanistan Military Academy.

Dr. King has authored two books, his most recent being Understanding International Environmental Security: A Strategic Military Perspective. He won both the American Academy of Environmental Engineering Honor Award in 1992 for his work on the Kuwait health risk assessment and the Army Science Award for outstanding research for his work in geophysical remote sensing. In 1988, he completed his Ph.D. in environmental engineering, at the University of Tennessee. In 2000, he completed his M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies at the Naval War College.

Dr. King is a licensed professional engineer and a diplomat of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers with a specialty in hazardous waste management. He serves as a subject matter expert to NATO and OSCE on cleanup of military hazardous wastes and restoration of closed military facilities in East Europe. Dr. King retired from active duty at the rank of brigadier general in August 2006 after over 32 years of active service.

Mr. Nick Mabey is chief executive and a founder-director of E3G (Third Generation Environmentalism) a nonprofit international organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to sustainable development. In addition to his management role, Mr. Mabey leads E3G’s work on European climate change policy, climate diplomacy and foreign policy, and the security implications of climate change.

Mr. Mabey was previously a senior advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit leading work on national and international policy areas, including: energy, climate change, countries at risk of instability, organized crime and fisheries. He was employed in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Environment Policy Department, and was the FCO lead for the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 where he established international partnerships on clean energy, tourism and environmental democracy.

Before he joined government, Mr. Mabey was head of economics and development at WWF-UK. He came to WWF from research at London Business School on the economics of climate change, which he published as the book Argument in the Greenhouse. This followed a period in the UK electricity industry working as a negotiator for PowerGen and as an engineer for GEC-Alsthom. Mr. Mabey trained as a mechanical engineer at Bristol University and holds a master’s degree in technology and policy from MIT where he specialised in energy systems analysis.

Among other appointments, Mr. Mabey is currently on the advisory board of Infrastructure UK, the independent commission reporting to the UK Conservative Party on the design of a green investment bank, and the advisory council of the European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power.

Major General Muniruzzaman is the President and CEO of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (http://www.bipss.org.bd/index.php/). He is a former career military officer and retired after 38 years of active duty. He has extensive UN peace keeping experience and has also headed the post-election UN peace keeping mission in Cambodia. He has command experience at all levels up to a division. He has been senior faculty member of both Command & Staff College and the National Defence College.

Major General Muniruzzaman is a member of the Military Advisory Council (MAC) on climate change. He is a founding member of the Non-Traditional Security, Asia (NTS-Asia) based in Singapore and sits on the board of Council for Asian Transnational Threats Research (CATR). He was a member of the G-20 consultative process on energy security and has also participated and spoken at the Minerva Energy and Environmental Security program at the U.S. Air University. He is currently heading a number of research projects including the MacArthur Foundation project on “Climate Change and Migration: Exploring the Conflict Potential”, a joint project with Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) on “South Asian Water Security”, a German government supported project on “Human Security Dimensions of Climate Change”. He has written extensively on various security aspects of climate change and has been interviewed widely both by the international print and electronic media. His recent publications also include book chapters published by RUSI, Macquarie University, Australia. His education and training background include National University Bangladesh, National Defence College, Armed Forces Staff College, Malaysia, and U.S. Naval War College.

Major General Joseph Singh (Ret.) has had 35 years of military service commanding infantry troops from platoon to brigade level and was the chief of staff of the Guyana Defence Force from 1990 to 2000. After retirement from uniformed service, he held the appointments of chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (2001); executive director, Conservation International Guyana (2001-2005); chief executive officer of the Guyana Telephone Company (2005-2010).He is currently chairman of the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission and a member of the Guyana National Protected Areas Commission. He is a graduate of the University of Guyana (public administration), post-graduate of the University of Greenwich School of Earth & Environmental Sciences (Master of Science), the UK Army Staff College and the Royal College of Defence Studies (post-graduate in international elations & strategic studies). He is a fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, a member of the Military Advisory Council of the Institute of Environmental Security, and a member of the regional selection panel of the A.N. Sabga Annual Caribbean Awards for Excellence. He is a published author on topics relating to military and environmental affairs, national development and scientific exploration. He is the recipient of Guyana's highest national military award, the Military Service Star, and of military and national awards from Venezuela, Brazil, Surinam, Cuba and France. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Golden Ark for his services to global conservation.

Dr. Tom Spencer is vice chairman of the Institute for Environmental Security, executive director of the European Centre for Public Affairs and visiting professor of public affairs at Brunel University, Uxbridge.

Spencer was a member of the European Parliament for Derbyshire from 1979 to 1984 and for Surrey from 1989 to 1999. From 1997 to 1999, he was president of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Defence Policy. Spencer is also a committed environmentalist who has served as president of GLOBE International (Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment) as well as other boards.