Matthew Breay Bolton

I am Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University, New York City. I'm a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) team awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. My work has focused on addressing the ongoing environmental harm in communities affected by nuclear weapons testing and production. 

 

Living as an aid worker in landmine-affected communities – in Bosnia and Iraq in the early 2000s – compelled me to study and resist the humanitarian and environmental effects of weapons.​ Later experiences in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Fiji, Haiti, Laos, Kenya, Kiribati, Maohi Nui/French Polynesia, Uganda, Vietnam, Sudan and South Sudan, have motivated my participation in global campaigns on landmines, cluster munitions, killer robots, drones, the arms trade and nuclear weapons. I've worked with UNICEF and UNDP programs on landmines and served on Control Arms' information and analysis team during the 2012-2013 Arms Trade Treaty negotiations. 

 

My PhD in Government and Master's in Development Studies are from the London School of Economics. I'm currently enrolled in a Master's in Environmental Studies at SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry, working on a thesis on the politics of the black bear-human nexus and its implications for our understandings of sovereignty, conservation and territoriality.

 

My spouse, Emily Welty, and I live in Rockaway Beach NYC, where I am an avid, though unimpressive, surfer. I am Deaf/Hard of Hearing. I use he/him/his pronouns.