THE KOREA SOCIETY

Ambassador Bonnie Denise Jenkins, PhD, has served as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security since July 22, 2021. As Under Secretary, she leads three bureaus: the Arms Control, Compliance and Verification Bureau; the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau; and the Political-Military Affairs Bureau. In addition, as of May 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken named Under Secretary Jenkins as the senior official to lead the Department’s efforts on AUKUS implementation.

U/S Jenkins previously served in the Obama Administration as Special Envoy and Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) from July 2009 until January 2017. Ambassador Jenkins coordinated U.S. efforts on threat reduction globally and U.S. government programs in chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological (CBRN) security. She was the State Department lead for all four of the Nuclear Security Summits held from 2010 to 2016, as well as the U.S. Representative to the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.

Before serving as Coordinator, she was a Legal Adviser to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency where she provided advice to U.S. ambassadors and delegations negotiating arms control and nonproliferation treaties. Ambassador Jenkins also provided legal advice to treaty implementation bodies including the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). She has worked with international institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, Interpol, and the BWC Implementation Support Unit.

From its inception in 2017 until April 2021, Ambassador Jenkins was the Founder, Executive Director, and Board Chair of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS), a leading advocacy organization supporting women of color in the security and peace-building sector that believes global issues are best approached from a variety of perspectives.

Ambassador Jenkins has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs. Ambassador Jenkins has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Virginia; an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law 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 also attended The Hague Academy for International Law. 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.

Major Jessica Taylor, US Air Force Reserve, is a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is currently pursuing her PhD in international relations with a focus on the Indo-Pacific as a part of the Security Studies program at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. In addition, Taylor is a logistics readiness officer in the US Air Force Reserve. Taylor has served in the US Department of Defense in both military and civil service capacities for nearly twenty years. She most recently served in South Korea from 2019 to 2021 as an international relations strategist where she provided geopolitical analysis and advice to the headquarters command staffs of United Nations Command, ROK/US Combined Forces Command, and US Forces Korea. In addition to experience in East Asia, Taylor has had assignments in South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Taylor holds a BA in biology from Baylor University and an MS in foreign service from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.