The Georgia Tech Model United Nations Conference

October 17-18, 2011

More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations. Kofi Annan

Leadership

Secretariat

Secretary General – Kristin Meagher
Kristin Meagher is a fourth-year International Affairs and Modern Languages (French) major and is currently pursuing a minor in Law, Science, and Technology and a certificate in European Union studies. Her particular areas of interest and research include the integration of Central and Eastern nations into the EU as well as democratic assistance in the developing world. She plans on attending law school in the fall of 2012 to pursue a career in international corporate litigation and negotiation. This is her fourth year with Georgia Tech Model United Nations (in the past she has served as the Director of GA6 – Legal, the Director of the IAEA and the Assistant Director of GA2 – Economics and Finance). Through Georgia Tech she completed internships with the Consulate General of Canada and the Carter Center, as well as an international fellowship with Humanity in Action. At Georgia Tech she is involved with Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society, the Georgia Tech Student Foundation, the Georgia Tech Department of Housing (where she serves as a Peer Leader for freshmen), and Christian Campus Fellowship.

Conference Director – Graham Sweeney
Graham Sweeney is a third year student majoring in International Affairs and Spanish. His studies and the International Program carried him to the University of Sheffield (where he performed his duties as Conference Director in addition to performing with the University of Sheffield Light Entertainment Society (USLES)) in England last spring and hopefully will carry him to the University of Grenada in Spain for the 2012-2013 school year. This is his second year on the GTMUN staff, having served last year as the Director for the CCPCJ. When not preparing for the GTMUN conference, Graham functions as the Historian for DramaTech Theatre (in addition to acting and stage managing), a Team Leader for the Honors Program GT1000 Freshmen Seminar and as an inaugural member of LINKS – Georgia Tech’s intercultural exchange group – and dIPlomats – the International Plan student organization. Additionally, he is working on his undergraduate research project with Prof. Margaret E. Kosal of the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy (CISTP) for a third semester – Nanotechnology and International Security: The Russian Federation. Eventually Graham will take a break (or die trying).

Director General – Sapphire Liu
Sapphire Liu is a third year majoring in International Affairs and Chinese, with a minor in Japanese. She was involved in the competitive MUN team for all four years of high school, and is also currently on the GT MUN team that attended the 2011 Harvard National MUN. Previously, she was the Assistant Director for IAEA in 2009 and the Director for WHO in 2010.
She has an enormous passion in trying to understand how the international community works with respect to international security. This interest has led to her undergraduate research topic- Security and Gaming. Besides undergraduate research, she was a cellist and officer of the GT Symphony and the vice president for the Student Music Association Board (SMAB). She is a member of the Taiwanese American Student Association (TASA) and the president of the International Affairs Student Organization (IASO). She currently serves as the Vice President of Preparation for the GT Competitive Model UN Club. She also likes being outdoors, playing sports, and traveling.

Faculty

Dr. Kirk Bowman is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also the author of a 2002 book on democratization, development, and the military in Latin America and some twenty articles, book chapters, and published papers. His next book focuses on national tourism ministries in Latin America and the Caribbean and a forthcoming co-authored project explores the powerful relationship between soccer, identity, and politics in the Southern Cone of Latin America. Dr. Bowman has conducted extensive fieldwork in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Fiji, Honduras, and Uruguay and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. He consulted the tourism industry in Argentina and Fiji and received three major grants from the National Institutes of Health for applied research on sustainable development and conservation in Fiji. He received his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1998. Dr. Bowman was the winner of the 2007 University System of Georgia Board of Regents Teacher of the Year, and the 2008 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Georgia Professor of the Year. He has directed 13 study abroad programs in Latin America and Iberia, and is the founding faculty director of the award-winning International House at Georgia Tech. Dr. Bowman serves as the faculty advisor for the GTMUN Conference.

Dr. Katja Weber (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) is Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. Her research interests center around institution-building in Europe and Asia Pacific, varying interpretations of sovereignty, non-traditional security challenges, and German foreign policy. She is the author of Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: Transaction Costs and Institutional Choice (SUNY Press, 2000), co-author (with Paul Kowert) of Cultures of Order: Leadership, Language, and Social Reconstruction in Germany and Japan, (SUNY Press, 2007), and co-editor (with Michael Baun and Michael Smith) of Governing Europe’s Neighborhood: Partners or Periphery? (Manchester University Press, 2007). She has also published a number of articles in the Journal of European Integration, Journal of European Public Policy, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Issues and Studies, and has received research support from the SSRC Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation/Ford Foundation, the American Political Science Foundation, and the European Commission, among others. During the fall of 2008 she was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Graduate School of Law & Politics at the University of Tokyo, and later this fall she will be a Visiting Fellow at the EU Center at the National University of Singapore/Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Weber is the Interim Chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.