Our Team

Principal Director, Justin Thomas Russell

Justin T. Russell has over 30 years of experience in government service, government relations, and international affairs, covering a wide range of issues.  

In addition to his work on several political grassroots campaigns, he has worked with federal, state, and foreign leaders on various key issues involving international relations, commercial maritime interests, national security / public safety, environmental protection, and emergency management.

In addition to his role as Principal Director for NYCFPA, Mr. Russell serves concurrently as the principal advisor to an American Indian Tribal Government on Congressional Affairs and Federal Relations, Mr. Russell also advises the Tribe on issues involving economic development, government contracting, and business operations.

Prior to his current endeavors, Mr. Russell served as Managing Principal for  Washington, DC-based Rialtas Public Strategies from 2012  to 2015.  Before establishing RPS, he served as Director of Corporate Strategy and International Affairs for Avaya Government Solutions in Fairfax, Va. from 2009 to 2012.

Previously, as director of maritime and border security for General Dynamics Information Technology, he advised both government and private sector clients on port and border security, policy development, grant acquisition, and emergency response and preparedness.

Before joining General Dynamics Information Technology in 2003, Russell was the president and managing partner of SPG/Florida Atlantic Consultants, a firm specializing in government affairs, emergency management, crisis communications, and community development.  In this position, he worked closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, and other Federal agencies on behalf of numerous public and private clients.

Mr. Russell is also a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve where he served in positions involving law enforcement, alien/migrant interdiction operations, and maritime safety and security.  His service featured several key operations including Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Mr. Russell is a regularly featured lecturer at American University and has been featured in various publications.  He resides in Arlington, VA.

Chief Communications Officer, James Grandone, B.A.

James Grandone is the founder of Grandone Media Strategies. James Grandone has been involved in strategic marketing and public relations on a national and international level for more than 30 years.  He is past president of the St. Louis chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators and has served on numerous boards, including the Journalism Foundation of Metropolitan St. Louis. Mr. Grandone is an Associate Member of Chicago Bar Association and Associate Member of the American Bar Association. He is a proud volunteer with the American Red Cross Disaster Services. Mr. Grandone holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Springfield and is a former Fellow with the Coro Leadership Center in Public Affairs.

Program Director, Alyssa Bonk, B.A.

Alyssa Bonk is a graduate of the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs with concentrations in Asian Studies and Conflict & Security. She also studied at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, where she was active in student relations.

Ms. Bonk previously worked for the International Republican Institute in their Asia Division concentrating on programs in Mongolia, Cambodia, North Korea, and Bangladesh (among others); and with numerous campaigns as a PAC fundraiser. Her interests in international relations stem from her time as President of Model United Nations. She is proficient in Spanish, Italian and Korean.

Vice President of Research, George Bogden

Dr. George Bogden is a JD candidate and Dean’s Award Scholar at New York University’s School of Law. Previously, he served as the first Associate Director of the Center for the Future of Liberal Society at the Hudson Institute. Dr. Bogden’s commentary has appeared in the German Marshall Fund’s Paper Series, The American Interest, Justia, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and the Marine Corps University Press. He has held professional research positions at the Middle East Institute and the Public International Law & Policy Group, where he was a Policy Fellow. Dr. Bogden is a New Leader at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and is a member of Chatham House, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Japan Society. He has pursued his longstanding professional commitment to Transatlantic affairs through the Manfred Wörner Seminar program and was one of the American Council on Germany’s 2018 Young Leaders.

Dr. Bogden received M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in international relations from the University of Oxford, where he was a Clarendon Scholar. During the last year of his doctoral studies, he served as a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow in Kosovo. Before beginning his graduate studies, he received a B.A. in political science from Yale. As an undergraduate, he won the James Gordon Bennet Prize for the best senior essay in international relations, the Harvey Applebaum Award, and the Edwin H. Sherman Family Prize for scholarship on force and diplomacy, serving as Yale’s Fox International Fellow in Istanbul the year following his graduation.  

Research Director, John Miller, M.A.

John Miller has an extensive background working in Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa specializing in program design and implementation, capacity development and evaluation metrics. He has developed and implemented projects for USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE-ODIHR), Department for International Development United Kingdom (DFID), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Australian Aid, the Carter Center, and the Asia Pacific Democracy Partnership (APDP). 

Mr. Miller received a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs (focusing on International Affairs and Management) and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Business also from Indiana University. As part of his degree, he spent three months studying at École Nationale d’Administration in Paris and other national government schools across Europe, including Berlin and Warsaw. Post-grad, John served as an economic consultant with the City of Fort Wayne, a research assistant at the Hudson Institute, a Congressional Fellow, and as a Defense Analyst with the Government Accountability Office.

He has been posted in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tunisia, and Ukraine.

Associate, Kayla Murphy, B.A.

Contributing Scholars:

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, Ph.D, LL.M., M.P.A.

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins is the Founder and Executive Director of Women of Color Advancing Peace Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS). She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jenkins is currently the Chair of the Steering Committee of the International Women’s Conference on Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction to Non-State Actors, and the Chair of the Committee on Radioactive Sources: Applications and Alternative Technologies of the National Academies of Sciences. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a Professorial Lecturer at the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs. She is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Nursing and Veterinary Science. She recently served as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House and a Visiting Dignitary at the LBJ School at the University of Texas in Austin.

Jenkins was nominated by President Barack Obama in April 2009 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in June 2009 as Special Envoy and Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN), U.S. Department of State (DOS). She served in that position until January 2017. Jenkins promoted a coordinated U.S. effort on threat reduction globally. Jenkins was the DOS lead for the 2010 – 2016 Nuclear Security Summits and the U.S. Representative to the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.  She led diplomatic efforts promoting the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), helped establish the GHSA NGO Consortium, and founded the GHSA Next Generation Network. For her service, she was the 2016 ISN Nominee for the Secretary’s Award for Excellence in International Security Affairs. Prior to being an Ambassador, Jenkins worked at the Ford Foundation as the Program Officer for US Foreign and Security Policy, at the Rand Corporation, and as a Legal Adviser at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Jenkins holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia; an LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center; an M.P.A. from the State University of New York at Albany; a J.D. from Albany Law School and a B.A. from Amherst College. She was a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the JFK School at Harvard University at which time she also worked at the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising at Harvard Law School where she advised law students on employment in the US government and public entities. Jenkins is a retired U.S. Naval Reserve Officer and received numerous awards for her military service. She is a member of the New York State Bar.

Edward P. Joseph, M.A., J.D.

Edward P. Joseph is a is adjunct professor and senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

With 15 years’ experience in conflict areas from the Balkans to the Middle East to Haiti, Edward P. Joseph is a foreign policy professional, commentator and lecturer who brings an on-the-ground perspective to his work.

Among his senior international positions, Edward served as the US-nominated Deputy Ambassador of one of the largest democracy and human rights missions in the world – the OSCE Mission in Kosovo.  In April, 2012, Edward personally negotiated an eleventh-hour agreement between Serbia and Kosovo that averted a crisis and another violent confrontation between the two neighbors.  The breakthrough accomplishment earned the praise of leaders on both sides, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier.

Edward has the distinction of having served in every theatre and every conflict affected country in the Balkans.  In a dozen years of service – with the UN, the US Army, NATO, OSCE, Catholic Relief Services and the International Crisis Group – Edward witnessed the dissolution of Yugoslavia and was an active participant in the international effort to bring peace.  Edward also served on missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Haiti, and helps advance US policy in Libya with the National Council on US-Libya Relations.  

A broadcast and print commentator, Edward has been published in virtually all major outlets, including The New York Times and Foreign Affairs.  His article, ‘The Balkans, Interrupted’ was selected as one of ‘The Year’s Best.’  Edward’s analysis of Iran’s calculus after the Suleimani operation appears here.

Edward earned his J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law, and his B.A. and M.A., respectively, from Johns Hopkins University, and its School of Advanced International Studies. Trained as a helicopter pilot in the Army Reserve, Edward is a veteran, deployed with NATO in Bosnia.  He speaks Croatian / Serbian, and French, Italian and Spanish.    

Rear Admiral C. Kenneth Carodine, USN (Ret.)

Ken Carodine, a 1982 graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland,  is the first officer and sailor from a family of military veterans. He earned a Master of Science in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Dallas in 1994. 

Carodine received his designation as a Surface Warfare Officer in 1983, almost one year after his commissioning.  After eight years of active duty service, Carodine affiliated with the Navy Reserve (NR) in 1989 and mobilized in 1990 with Carrier Group Seven. During Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm combat operations he served as a Battle Force Watch Captain directing aircraft in the prosecution of enemy patrol boats, and as the Force Over-the-Horizon Track coordinator preventing friendly-fire incidents in the Northern Arabian Gulf. 

After over 25 years of sustained superior performance, the Navy selected Ken for promotion to Rear Admiral in 2009. Originally from Huntsville, Alabama, Ken is only the second African American Navy Flag Officer in the history of the State of Alabama. Rear Admiral Carodine retired from the US Navy in October 2013. 

As a senior leader Ken proposed, formulated, and executed policy in the areas of technology implementation, personnel management and National Security.  As a member of the US Navy’s Headquarters Staff, Ken played a pivotal role in guiding the Navy’s direction in a chaotic world.

Prior to his selection to flag rank, Carodine served as an information technology executive leader for several large health care insurance companies to include United Healthcare and Health Care Service Corporation. His information technology background spans application development, database management, and analytics. 

Also a published fiction author, Carodine writes novels centered on naval personnel and technology in today’s dynamic world.

Steven M. Schneebaum, M.A., LL.M.

Steven M. Schneebaum, Interim Director of the International Law and Organizations Program for the 2019-20 academic year at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has been a lawyer in private practice in Washington, DC, and a university teacher of international legal topics, for four decades. After partnerships in three national law firms, he established his own firm in 2014, SMS Law DC, PC. He has taught international advocacy at SAIS since 1990, the law of the European Union from 2000 through 2007, and constitutional law since 2008.

Schneebaum currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Branch of the International Law Association, the International Law Students Association (of which he was founding Chairman), the Council for Court Excellence, and Child Justice, Inc.; as well as advisory boards to the British-American Project and the Center for Justice and Accountability. He is a Counsellor to the American Society of International Law, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In addition to Johns Hopkins SAIS, Schneebaum has taught at Catholic, American, Cornell, George Washington, and Oxford Universities.

He was educated at Yale University, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude, at Oberlin College (Master of Arts in philosophy), Oxford University (Bachelor and Master of Arts in jurisprudence, the former with First Class Honors), and George Washington University Law School (Master of Comparative Law). His honors and awards include the Msgr. Geno Baroni Caritas Award from Catholic Community Services (2005), the United States Army Commander’s Award for Public Service (2009), and the Pamela Young Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Law Students Association (2018). He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and numerous federal trial and appellate bars, including that of the United States Supreme Court.

Dr. Rachael M. Rudolph, Ph.D

Dr. Rachael M. Rudolph is an Assistant Professor of Social Science at Bryant University-BITZH Programs at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, China, where she teaches courses on traditional and non-traditional global security issues and conducts research on strategic security in the Indo-Pacific region and China-Gulf and China-European foreign policy and security relations.  She has lived in the Asia Pacific region since 2013 and has served as an adviser to various media outlets in India and a consultant in a private capacity to actors across the globe.  

Dr. Rudolph also sits on the Executive Committee for the Euro-Gulf Information Center, which is located in Rome, Italy, and is presently working on a book project co-sponsored by EGIC and the Austria Institute of European Security (AIES). The views expressed in the articles she writes for NYCFPA are not per se endorsed by nor do they reflect the views of any of the institutions with whom she has an affiliation.