Dr. Rebecca E. Johnson is Director of the Acronym Inst. for Disarmament Diplomacy (AIDD), which she set up in Geneva in 1994 to monitor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations, Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and various disarmament-related issues, publishing reporting and analyses through AIDD’s journal Disarmament Diplomacy (1996 – 2009).  Her Ph.D from London University (LSE 2004) on the CTBT and multilateral disarmament negotiations, led to rethinking disarmament and security strategies. From 2009 she strategised with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and became ICAN’s first president after establishing its Geneva-based HQ to broaden humanitarian disarmament, governmental and civil society engagement, leading to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), for which ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

Dr Johnson currently serves on the Internationa Panel on Fissile Materials, ICAN's International Steering Group, XR Peace Council and as Vice President of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). She previously served as Vice Chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist(2001-7), Senior Advisor for the International Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (Blix Commission, 2004-2006) and in advisory roles for various governments and civil society campaigns.

Dr Johnson's publications include: ‘Unfinished Business’ on the CTBT (UNIDIR 2009), Trident and International Law (co-editor, Luath 2011); and authored numerous book chapters on nuclear issues, NPT and TPNW processes, the UN and civil society, feminist-humanitarian security and treaty developments, including the 'Arms Control and Disarmament' chapter in the 2013 Oxford Handbook on Modern Diplomacy. She also provides contemporaneous analysis on security issues for international and social media, including AP, IDN InterPress, The Guardian, BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera etc and online platforms such as OpenDemocracy.