Morien Rees is a Museum Development Advisor at Varanger Museum (Norway). He studied architecture at the University of Wales and art history at the University of Oslo. He practised architecture until 1994. Since 1994 he has worked in the museum sector. At present, he is employed in Varanger Museum on the Norway’s arctic coast. He is the chair of ICOM’s Working Group on Sustainability (ICOM WGS).

Bonita Bennett was appointed as director of the District Six Museum in 2008. Her professional training is as an educator with strong anti-apartheid activist roots and she completed both her under- and post-graduate degrees at the University of Cape Town. Her Masters dissertation focused on narratives of people who were forcibly removed from various areas in the Western Cape under Apartheid. She is currently registered as a doctoral student at the University of Pretoria.
Both her parents are from District Six, and she grew up in a township on the Cape Flats with other families who were displaced. The District Six Museum provides a wonderful platform from which to confront the legacies of Apartheid displacement, and to also raise awareness about the indivisibility of human rights.

Yacy-Ara Froner holds a degree in History from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (1988), a Master’s in Social History (1994) and a Ph.D. in Economic History (2001), with emphasis on cultural heritage, by University of Sao Paulo (USP). She was trained in restoration by the Center for Conservation and Restoration (CECOR) (1992) and in conservation by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) (1995). She is currently a professor at the School of Fine Arts, at the undergraduate courses in Visual Arts and Conservation- Restoration, and lecturing at the Graduate Program in Arts. She also coordinates the Graduate Program in Built Environment and Sustainable Heritage of the Faculty of Architecture of Federal University of Minas Gerais.

Cecilia Lam is the Founding Director of the Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change and the Director of the Campus Planning and Sustainability Office at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. With a portfolio including strategic planning and sustainability in higher education, she also oversees the program operations of the Hong Kong Chapter of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN Hong Kong) and serves as a member of the Hong Kong Sustainable Campus Consortium.

Henry McGhie has had a lifelong passion for nature, and has a background as a bird ecologist. He worked at Manchester Museum, part of the University, from 2000–2019, as a curator and head of the Museum’s curatorial team. He oversaw the development of award-winning galleries and special exhibitions linked to environmental sustainability and climate change. He has helped broker partnerships between researchers, museums and policy workers, both in the UK and internationally, and is a member of the Working Group on Sustainability established by ICOM in 2018. Henry is interested in finding ways to accelerate museums’ contributions to nature conservation, climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, and working with people and organisations who want to go farther, faster together towards a world where people and nature flourish together.

Dr. Mamoru Mohri was the first Japanese astronaut on Space Shuttle, as well as the first CEO of Miraikan serving as a liaison between researchers and society. His new style in science communication creates Cool Japan in the science centre world including live TV “Space Classroom” and the first solar eclipse TV broadcast from Antarctica. He also dove 6,500m into the deep sea. He enjoys an everlasting challenge to explore the unknown. Dr. Mohri hosted for Science Center World Summit 2017 as the Chair and established the "Tokyo Protocol” to contribute to achieving the UN’s SDGs.

As a consultant, Ms. Sutton, LEED-AP (a certification in sustainability), works with staff and leadership of cultural organizations as they develop sustainable solutions and foster climate action. As a member of the Executive Committee for We Are Still In, and as its Cultural Institutions Sector Lead, she strengthens the American sector’s support of the Paris Agreement. She is co-chair of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Task Force on Environment & Climate, and a board member of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Environment & Climate Network. She is a co-author of The Green Museum and author of Environmental Sustainability at Historic Sites & Museums. She is a 2019 Salzburg Global Fellow.

Jette Sandahl was the founding director of the pioneering Museum of World Cultures in Sweden and the Women’s Museum of Denmark. She served as Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the National Museum of Denmark, and as Director Experience at National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Most recently, she was director of the Museum of Copenhagen. She attended the Getty Museum Management Institute and has held a number of elected and appointed posts in the national and international museum world. She currently chairs the European Museum Forum as well as the ICOM standing committee Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials. Spanning her background in psychology and her museum career is a commitment to the formation of new paradigms and platforms for empowerment, cultural participation and social justice. She publishes within the board museological field.

George H.O. Abungu is a Cambridge-trained archaeologist and former director-general of the National Museums of Kenya. He is CEO of Okello Abungu Heritage Consultants and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art from the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA). He is also a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts des Lettres) of the Republic of France for his outstanding contribution to Heritage at local and global levels as well as the first African recipient of the World Heritage Fund Award for his contribution to capacity building in the field of heritage in Africa. George has researched, published and taught in the disciplines of archaeology, heritage management, and museology, culture and development. He is former Vice-President of ICOM, was Kenya's representative to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and vice president of its bureau. He is founding associate professor of the M.A. in heritage management at the University of Mauritius and a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Margaret Anderson is a senior public historian and museum administrator who currently directs the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne. In a long career, she held senior museum positions in Western Australia and South Australia and in the 1980s was Foundation Director of the Migration Museum. She pioneered discussions in Australia encouraging museums to partner with community groups.
Margaret is a feminist historian with research interests in women’s history and material history. She is especially interested in debates about conflicted views of the past and the capacity of museums to present ‘difficult histories’. In the MDPP, she chairs the Working Group exploring Cultural Democracies and Participatory Practices.

Lauran Bonilla-Merchav received her Ph.D in Art History from City University of New York, the Graduate Center. She is currently serving her second term as Chair of ICOM Costa Rica and is the treasurer of ICOM LAC Regional Alliance. Besides being a member of ICOM’s Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials (MDPP) Standing Committee, she is on the Steering Committee of the EU-LAC Museums project, an initiative funded by the European Union that studies community museums and fosters bi-regional interaction and learning. Bonilla-Merchav teaches Art History and Museology courses at the University of Costa Rica.

Shose Kessi is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Deputy Dean for Transformation in the Humanities Faculty at the University of Cape Town. She is also co-director of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa. Her research centers on political psychology and institutional change, exploring issues of identity, such as race, class, and gender, and how these impact on people’s participation in transformation efforts. A key focus is the development of Photovoice methodology as a participatory action research tool that can raise consciousness and mobilize community groups into social action.

Dr Nirmal Kishnani is an Associate Professor with the National University of Singapore where he teaches sustainability at the Department of Architecture and is Programme Director of the Master of Science, Integrated Sustainable Design. Since 2002, he has been part of the conversation on Asia, consulting on projects and influencing policies that shape design practice. Since 2008 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the FuturArc magazine and resident jury chair of two Asia-based design competitions – FuturArc Prize and FuturArc Green Leadership Award – that he helped set up.

W. Richard West, Jr. serves as President and CEO of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles and is Director Emeritus and Founding Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. He is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and a member of the Southern Cheyenne Society of Peace Chiefs. West currently is a member of the Board of Directors of ICOM US and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and previously served on the Boards of the Ford Foundation, Stanford University, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. He also was Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Alliance of Museums (1998-2000) and Vice-President of the International Council of Museums (2007-2010).

Corine Wegener is Director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, an outreach program dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage in disasters in the U.S. and internationally. An art historian, she was formerly associate curator of American and European Decorative Arts at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A retired U.S. Army Reserve Arts, Monuments, and Archives Officer, Wegener continues to work with the military on training for protection of cultural property in armed conflict. She is founding past president of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, chair of ICOM’s Disaster Risk Management Committee, and a member of ICOM US.

Yuichi Ono received a Ph.D. in Geography (Climatology and Wind-related Hazard) at Kent State University, U.S.A. Between 2002-03, he worked with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He contributed to developing the disaster risk reduction programme. Between 2003 and 2009, with UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), he worked on an early warning system and helped develop and manage the ISDR Scientific and Technical Committee. He is the former Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), providing a regional platform for cooperation and policymaking for disaster risk reduction, with particular attention to developing countries and vulnerable social groups. Currently, He is a Professor at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University and a Director of the Global Centre for Disaster Statistics (GCDS) as well. He is the founder and CEO of the World Bosai Forum Foundation which will convene the Second World Bosai (Disaster Risk Reduction) Forum to be held in Sendai, Japan during November 9-12, 2019.

Alejandra Peña is a certified Architect from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and has Art History Master’s Degree. Her experience in the field of museums starts in 1992 as Head of the Museographic Department of the Museo Nacional de San Carlos, later she worked as Associate Curator for the Museo de Arte Moderno, then as Deputy Director at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes where later she also held the position of Director. In 2001 she was appointed Deputy Director General of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) in Mexico. She was Executive Assistant to the General Director of INBA, then Director of Cultural Promotion for the Directorate General of Educational and Cultural Collaboration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2009 to 2012, she held the position of Deputy Director General of Artistic Heritage for INBA. Since 2013 she is the Executive Director of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico.
Alejandra Peña has been a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors since 2014 and part of the ICOM-US Board since 2018.

Aparna Tandon specialises in crisis response and disaster risk management for cultural heritage. She has 25 years of post-qualification work experience in cultural heritage conservation and has conducted professional training for the conservation of cultural heritage in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South America.
As a Project Manager at ICCROM, she is coordinating its international capacity development programme on First Aid and Resilience for Cultural Heritage (FAR). Additionally, she leads the SOIMA (Sound and Image Collections Conservation) programme aimed at safeguarding endangered audio-visual heritage. In the past, she has contributed to the planning and implementation of Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management, a collaborative training initiative of ICCROM.

Researcher (Ph. D.) in museum studies, with a focus on cultural aspects of public policy and management of art museums.
She worked as a researcher for various cultural and art institutions in Brazil before being appointed Director of the Instituto Sergio Motta (ISM) Director of the State System of Museums of Sao Paulo (SISEM-SP) and Director of the Museological Heritage Preservation Unit (UPPM) at the Sao Paulo State Secretariat of Culture.
Since 2017, she is an Advisor of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), in the area of museums and collections. Established at the Rector's Office, she provides support for the five main museums of USP. Besides that, she takes part of the working group “Museu Paulista 2022” dedicated to the full renovation of Museu Paulista's historical building.
She was elected ICOM Brazil’s Chair for the period from 2018 to 2021.

Yukio Lippit is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and former Director of the Arts at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. He is a specialist in Japanese painting, and has curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Japan Society of New York.

Born in Tokyo in 1941, Professor Kawai did his doctoral coursework in the Graduate School of Letters at Keio University. In 1969 he joined the faculty at Keio as a teaching assistant, eventually becoming professor in 1988. Since 2007, he has been professor emeritus at Keio University. In 2012, he also became director of the Chiba City Museum of Art.

Min-Jung Kim is a curator of Asian Arts and Design at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS, also known as Powerhouse Museum) in Sydney, Australia. Kim was born and educated in South Korea and has lived in Australia. She attained Master of Arts in Curatorial and Museum Studies from the University of Sydney and has worked at MAAS for the last 12 years. Kim has published and lectured widely on Korean textiles, ceramics and metalworks, Japanese fashion, Chinese belt toggles and curatorial studies. Selective exhibitions she curated include 'Rapt in colour' (1998), 'Earth, Spirit and Fire' (2000), 'Sprit of Jang-in' (2010),' Japanese folds' (2015) and 'Reflections of Asia' (2018).

M.A. in Art History, Sinology, Japanology, Ph.D. in Art History, curator at Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), Berlin, secretary of ICOM Germany in 2003, Head of Exhibition Department of Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Germany; since 2015 director Fine Arts and Cultural History at Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Germany. Exhibition projects (choice): German Colonial History in Qingdao, China; Prussian coronation 1701; Lu Chuntao. Painting; China Architecture: 100 Projects; The Arts of Baroque, Belle Époque, Fine Arts for Prince Electors.

Anne Nishimura Morse is the William and Helen Pounds Senior Curator of Japanese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she most recently organized the exhibitions In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3-11 (2015) and Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics (2017). In Japan she has also presented Japanese Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Tokyo National Museum, 2012), and Double Impact: The Art of Meiji Japan (Tokyo University of the Arts, 2015). She currently serves as the co-chair for the Arts Dialogue Committee of the US-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON).