NIS Staff
David Cullen
NIS Director
David joined Nuclear Information Service in 2016 and is the main researcher and spokesperson, he is the author of NIS reports Trouble Ahead: Risks and rising costs in the UK nuclear weapons programme and Extreme Circumstances: The UK’s new nuclear warhead in context. David has a background in environmental, social justice and disarmament campaigning and previously worked for the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons. He is chair of trustees for the Conflict and Environment Observatory and co-chair of the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation’s NGO Forum.
Trish Whitham
NIS Co-ordinator
Trish has been working with NIS since 2010. She combines senior marketing and management experience gained in the IT industry with more than 20 years campaigning experience on nuclear, peace and environmental issues. Her work with Nuclear Information Service includes planning and executing projects and events, communications, fund raising and volunteer co-ordination.
Volunteers
Venny Cardoz
NIS Volunteer
Venny joined NIS as a volunteer in 2019. She brings accounts and administration experience to the team and assists NIS with research, news gathering and administration.
Ming L. Ho
NIS Volunteer
Ming is a journalist turned pastor passionate about proactive listening. He helps in news gathering, database and website updates and video editing.
Muhammad Qasim
NIS Volunteer
Muhammad supports NIS with experience in qualitative research, data analysis, stakeholder and community engagement and his strong background in advocacy and political campaigns
NIS Board Members
Duncan Barnet
NIS Company Secretary
Duncan is a retired ACMA qualified accountant with 16 years experience in industry followed by over 25 years in the voluntary sector. He is the Nuclear Information Service Company Secretary, providing financial management advice and ensuring that company legal and governance obligations are met.
Kirsten Bayes
NIS Vice Chair of the board
Kirsten is also a regular speaker, employee and steering committee member at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). She worked in industry as an industrial marketer and technologist, before setting up a small business in 2016. She has also worked as a business school lecturer, and as an outreach campaigner for CAAT. She is on the boards of several non-profits, including Secure Active CIC and Reading Pride and is a former councillor and Deputy Leader of Reading Borough Council.
Janet Fenton
NIS Board Member
Janet Fenton is currently Secretary of the Scottish Parliament Disarmament Cross Party Group; Organiser of Secure Scotland Core Group and Vice Chair of Scottish CND. She is a Scottish Quaker, eco-feminist community arts/development practioner and is currently working with the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and Peace & Justice Scotland and has been active in International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) since its inception, serving on its International Steering Group and is a co-founder of Secure Scotland and member of Trident Ploughshares.
Giulia Gigliotti
NIS Board Member
Giulia has been a peace and antinuclear campaigner since her mid twenties, taking part in the protests against US cruise missiles at Greenham Common and as a member of Cruisewatch. She attends Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp regularly and uses her IT skills to manage the camp’s social media presence. She is also an environmental campaigner and has helped set up and run a number of local grassroots groups and campaigns for social and environmental change. Before retiring, she worked as a translator and also in the homelessness, advocacy and ex-offender rehabilitation sectors. From 2003 to 2005 she was Outreach Office Administrator for NIS when it was based in Southampton.
Ailsa Johnson
NIS Board Member
Ailsa has been a grassroots campaigner for 30 years at a local and national level with various groups such as CND, Surrey Peace Action Network and Aldermaston Womens Peace Camp. She served as Chair of the Board at NIS for 5 years.
Di McDonald
NIS Board Member and Founder
Di founded Nuclear Information Service to provide research and information on nuclear issues after living at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and working with Cruisewatch in the 1980s. She retired as our Project Director in 2009 but continues as a board member and brings a wealth of network contacts to the organisation through her previous roles in The Submarine Dismantling Project, Nuclear Submarine Forum, Peacerights and her continuing support for Nukewatch.
Dr Olamide Samuel
NIS Board Member
Olamide Samuel is a Track II diplomat and Policy Fellow at the European Leadership Network. He previously taught MA courses on International Security, and Diplomatic Practice as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS University of London. He was also a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Nuclear Politics at the University of Leicester. Olamide serves as Special Envoy of the Executive Secretary of the African Commission on Nuclear Energy (AFCONE), and has worked closely with various states, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University, to advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
He sits on the advisory boards of various non-profit organisations.
Dr Tim Street
NIS Chair of the Board
Tim is Chair of the Board of Directors at Nuclear Information Service and is also employed as Secretary at British Pugwash. He has been working on peace and disarmament issues since 2005 and has worked with Campaign Against Arms Trade, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, British American Security Information Council, Oxford Research Group, Conscience, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and Drone Wars UK. Tim completed his PhD in 2017 and his first book, entitled The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament, was published by Routledge in 2021. The book was the subject of a NIS webinar with Professor Paul Rogers, Bradford University, Alicia Sanders-Zakre, ICAN and Henrietta Wilson, SOAS.
NIS Patrons
Jonathon Porritt
NIS Patron
Jonathon Porritt is a co-founder of Forum for the Future, former director of Friends of the Earth UK (1984 – 1990), and a former co-chair of the Green Party (1980 – 1983). He stood down as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in July 2009 after nine years of providing high-level advice to government ministers, and was installed as the Chancellor of Keele University in February 2012. Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.
Nick Ritchie
NIS Patron
Nick researches and teaches in international relations and international security at the University of York, and previously ran the ‘Nuclear Armed Britain’ programme at the University of Bradford, examining progressive options for British nuclear weapons policy on a path towards nuclear disarmament.
Commander Robert Forsyth (Retd)
Robert Forsyth served in conventional and nuclear powered submarines for 21 years, commanding both types. He also spent 2 years as Executive Officer (sometimes in command) of a Polaris missile equipped submarine. This was later to define his opposition to nuclear weapons on which he now campaigns.
Subsequent to his service time he followed a commercial career in aerospace. He served on the board at Nuclear Information Service prior to retiring and now supports the organisation as a Patron.
Dr John Downer
NIS Patron
John researches and teaches on matters pertaining to risk, technology and science at the University of Bristol’s department of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. He primarily writes on US and UK debates around the safety and integrity of reactors and deterrence networks, and on the politics and sociology of radiological hazard assessments. His central interest is in the nature and role of expert knowledge in these debates, and the ways it is invoked by political actors.
Dr Phil Johnstone
NIS Patron
Phil Johnstone is a research fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex. Phil is a member of the Sussex Energy Group, and his research and writing broadly focusses on the political and democratic implications of energy transitions and the role of the military and warfare in technological development and innovation. He has a long-standing interest in nuclear power with research spanning a range of civil and military nuclear developments.
Professor Andy Stirling
NIS Patron
Andy Stirling is Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, where he co-directs the ‘STEPS Centre’. Working on issues of power, uncertainty and diversity in science and technology, he has served on a number of UK and EU governmental advisory committees