Heather Rahimi has worked within both the private and public sector of international education promoting cross-cultural exchange  and supporting students' studies abroad. Her passion for international education was first sparked studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina while completing her B.A. in Spanish and Anthropology from Northern Arizona University. Since then, she has jumped on any opportunity to travel and learn more about different cultures around the world. In addition to travels throughout the Middle East and Europe, she also spent time in Peru on an archaeological dig and a semester in South Korea working in student affairs at the University of Utah Asia Campus. Heather speaks fluent Spanish and holds a Master of Arts in International Education Management from Middlebury Institute of International Studies. 

Bill Phillips has vast experience in the US Intelligence Community with over 36 years as a professional intelligence officer, over 25 of which were as a CIA clandestine service officer.  Among his many accomplishments, Bill served as CIA Chief of Station (COS) in Latin America and the Near East, and developed specialized Counterintelligence expertise.  Bill has nationally recognized prowess in HUMINT and extensive knowledge of multiple foreign environments and cultures. He managed and led complex global, HUMINT, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotics operations. He worked closely with senior US government officials, Congressional elements, FBI, and elements of the US military, and has substantive expertise in South Asia, the Caribbean and certain remote areas of Latin America.   Bill was awarded CIA’s Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the National HUMINT Collector Award, the CIA’s Latin America Division Medal, Two Meritorious Unit Citations and numerous CIA Exceptional Performance Awards.

Bill also served as Director of the Office of Counterintelligence (CI) at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2005-2010. Bill enhanced that program by focusing CI efforts on educating LANL’s staff to the risks and threats posed by adversarial governments, criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations.  Bill integrated disparate disciplines (collection, analysis, investigations, and cyber) to strengthen the lab’s CI program.  A trusted member of the LANL leadership team, Bill collaborated with elements of the US Intelligence Community and FBI on highly sensitive CI investigations.

Currently, Bill is an independent consultant and has created intelligence related training programs, taught and advised clients in the IC.  He especially enjoys mentoring and guiding individuals new to the intelligence field.

Bill received a B.A. in History from Howard University in 1972 and a J.D. from Rutgers University in 1975.

A longtime student of Ki Aikido and Zen, Bill has used aspects of these disciplines in his work as an intelligence professional, leader, teacher and mentor. While at CIA, Bill helped create a pilot course introducing intelligence officers to the stress relieving benefits and resilience potential of meditation. Bill is a member of the Northern California Chapter of the Explorers Club. He is married with two adult sons.

Topics:   Counterintelligence, Intelligence, National Security, U.S. Intra-agency communication, Race Relations, Leadership, Mindfulness

Chris is working on a book manuscript focused on the central role of nuclear energy technology and diplomacy in shaping modern Brazil and Argentina and their bilateral relationship. A historian of Latin American science and technology, he was a visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School during Fall 2018, and conducted research in Brazil on a Stanton Foundation grant from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in early 2019. In 2017-2018, he was a Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC at  Stanford University, with research funded by the MacArthur Foundation.  Chris received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 2017, and also holds a B.A. in history with high distinction, B.S. in biochemistry, and M.A. in history from the University of Virginia.

Harold Trinkunas is the Deputy Director and a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Prior to arriving at Stanford, Dr. Trinkunas served as the Charles W. Robinson Chair and senior fellow and director of the Latin America Initiative in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on issues related to foreign policy, governance, and security, particularly in Latin America. Trinkunas has written on emerging powers and the international order, ungoverned spaces, terrorism financing, borders, and information operations. 

Trinkunas has co-authored Militants, Criminals and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), Aspirational Power: Brazil’s Long Road to Global Influence (Brookings Institution Press, 2016) and authored Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). He co-edited and contributed to Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2021), Three Tweets to Midnight: The Effect of the Global Information Ecosystem on the Risk of Nuclear Conflict  (Hoover Institution Press, 2020), American Crossings: Border Politics in the Western Hemisphere (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), Ungoverned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority in an Era of Softened Sovereignty (Stanford University Press, 2010), Global Politics of Defense Reform (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), and Terrorism Financing and State Responses (Stanford University Press, 2007).

Dr. Trinkunas also previously served as an associate professor and chair of the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He received his doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 1999. He was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela.