Deputy Director General, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Karen Lips is an American ecologist who studies global change biology. She received a BS in zoology from the University of South Florida and a PhD in biology from the University of Miami. Her research has focused on the impacts of an invasive pathogen on biodiversity and ecosystem ecology in the US and Latin America. Her work led to changes in national and international policy and emphasized the importance of scientific communication, public engagement, scientific leadership, and international collaboration.

In 2024, Karen started as the deputy director general at IIASA, where she leads scientific and educational programs and oversees external-relations, communications, and information-management departments. From 2022 to 2024, she served as program director in the Office of International Science and Engineering at the US National Science Foundation, managing funding programs supporting multilateral and multidisciplinary research to address global challenges. From 2009 to 2025, Karen was a professor of biology at the University of Maryland, where she also directed the Graduate Program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology. She previously held professorships at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, and St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. As a Jefferson Science Fellow at the US Department of State, Karen worked on zoonotic-disease programs in Latin America and on biodiversity policy in Colombia while also supporting educational-exchange programs. Karen is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Ecological Society of America.

Joel Nagel was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in August 1965. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1920s, and he returned to live and study in Germany in high school and college and at the university level (to study law).

Joel established his private law practice in 1990 in the specialized area of international business law, taxation, estate planning, and asset protection. Much of his focus is on helping clients select the right jurisdiction for a transaction and the best vehicle to reduce taxation and protect assets, including all types of international corporate and legal structures. He has pioneered the licensing of complex international structures, including banks, mutual and hedge funds, and innovative insurance products.

Since 2021, Joel has been the co-owner of the Vienna Vikings, the most successful American football team in Europe.

He began his education at Allegheny College, a small, private, liberal-arts college located in northwest Pennsylvania. Joel graduated with honors in 1986 with a bachelor of arts in both political science and German. He won an award for best senior thesis comparing and contrasting 18th-century US constitutional rights with 20th-century German constitutional rights.

In 1985, Joel studied political science at the Rheinische-Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany. He also studied international law as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Bonn from 1987 to 1988. During his two periods of study in Bonn, he worked concurrently as an intern for a member of the German Bundestag—Mattias Wissmann, economic spokesperson for the CDU/CSU—and his chief of staff, Rolf Siegmund. In 1988, Joel further studied law at The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands and had an opportunity to prepare and argue a moot court case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

He received his juris doctor (JD) degree from West Virginia University in 1989 and his master of law (LLM with higher distinction) from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, in 1990.

Joal married his college sweetheart, Susan (Entress) Nagel, in 1986, and they have seven children, four girls and three boys, ages 20 to 32.

Director of the Department for Scientific Cooperation and Intercultural Dialogue, Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs

Alexander Wojda is director of the Department for Scientific Cooperation and Intercultural Dialogue in the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA). One of his current projects is entitled “US Austrian Citizen Dialogue on Global Challenges.” Alexander has worked as a career diplomat for the Austrian Foreign Service since 1999, with missions in The Hague (2000–01), Geneva (2002–06), Sofia (2007–10), Athens (2014–18), and Strasbourg (2018–22). From 2011 to 2013, he headed the BMEIA’s “Dialogue of Cultures” task force, a unit that is part of the department that he currently heads. He holds a doctorate in Austrian law (University of Innsbruck, 1997) and an MA in international relations (Coventry University, 1998).