Jon Wolfsthal is a senior advisor to Global Zero and a member of the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He is a former Special Assistant to President of the United States Barack Obama for National Security Affairs and a former senior director at the National Security Council for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Before that, he was Deputy Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey. He joined Monterey after having been Special Advisor to Vice President Joseph R. Biden for nuclear security and nonproliferation and as a director for nonproliferation on the National Security Council from 2009-2012.
During his time in Government, he was involved in almost every aspect of U.S. nuclear weapons, arms control, nonproliferation, and security policy. He helped negotiate and secure the ratification of the New START arms reduction agreement with the Russian Federation and helped support the development of nuclear policy including through the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and other elements of the Obama Administration's security policies. He was previously a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and deputy director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in several capacities during the 1990s at the U.S. Department of Energy, including an on-the-ground assignment in North Korea during 1995-96.