We’re proud to announce our 2025-26 cohort of GIWPS Distinguished Non-Resident Fellows.
This year’s group includes former presidents, ministers, and ambassadors alongside a retired four-star admiral and a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist.
Our fellows share our commitment of advancing the role of women in all areas of peace and security.
We are thrilled to welcome them to our community and know they will greatly enhance our work through their experience and expertise.
Patricia Espinosa is a Mexican politician and diplomat who has served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Prior, she was Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Mexican Ambassador to Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Slovakia, and Permanent Representative to the UN in Vienna, Austria.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist. She hosts the New York Times’s flagship franchise ‘The Interview.’ Previously she worked at NPR for 17 years as an international correspondent in the Middle East and Latin America and, most recently, as the host of “Weekend Edition.”
Michelle J. Howard served over 35 years in the United States Navy. Her last command was from 2016 to 2017 as U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa. In 2014, she was the first woman to become a four-star Admiral in the U.S. Navy and the first woman to be appointed to the position of Vice Chief of Naval Operations. She is the first African American woman to reach the rank of three-star and four-stars in the Armed Forces.
Atifete Jahjaga served as the fourth, and the first woman, President of the Republic of Kosovo. Jahjaga is Kosovo’s first non-partisan candidate, the first female head of state in the modern Balkans, and the youngest female world leader to be elected to the highest office.
Natalie A. Jaresko currently serves as Managing Director in EY-Parthenon’s Turnaround and Restructuring Strategy practice focused on the Government and Public Sector. She served as Minister of Finance of Ukraine (2014-16) and as the Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (2017-2022).
Amb. Donald Steinberg serves as Executive Director of the non-profit Mobilizing Allies for Women, Peace, and Security (MAWPS). Previously, he served as Expert Advisor to the Administrator of USAID, Deputy Administrator at USAID, and U.S. Ambassador to Angola, among other positions during four decades of public service.
Dr. Beth Van Schaack served as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department office where she once served as Deputy. Currently with Stanford University’s Center for Human Rights & International Justice, she was a practicing lawyer earlier in her career, including at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
