Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey is currently serving her eleventh term in Congress, representing parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties. She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988 and served in the Democratic Leadership in 2001 and 2002 as the first woman and the first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, Lowey serves as Chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee and a senior Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, the Homeland Security Subcommittee, and the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. Lowey is as an extremely effective, committed legislator with a substantial record. Congressional Quarterly called her one of the 50 most effective Members of Congress, saying she “maneuvers skillfully through the appropriations process,” and Newsday said she “delivers for New York.”

Currently serving his seventh term in Congress, Jim McGovern was first sworn in as U.S. Representative for Massachusetts' 3rd Congressional District on January 7, 1997. McGovern is the Vice Chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, which sets the terms for debate and amendments on most legislation, and a member of the House Budget Committee. McGovern is also co-chair of both the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the House Hunger Caucus. Before his election to Congress, the 49 year old McGovern spent fourteen years working as a senior aide for the late U.S. Representative John Joseph Moakley (D-South Boston), former dean of the Massachusetts delegation and Chairman of the House Rules Committee.  During those years, McGovern earned a strong reputation as a champion of human rights. In 1989, McGovern was chosen by Congressman Moakley to lead a congressional investigation into the murders of six Jesuit priests and two lay women in El Salvador. 

Dr. Brimmer leads the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, which strives to advance U.S. interests through international organizations in areas including human rights, peacekeeping, food security, humanitarian relief, and climate change. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Brimmer was Deputy Director and Director of Research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at The Johns Hopkins University. There she specialized in transatlantic political and security affairs. Dr. Brimmer’s previous government service included two years in the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning, where she worked on European Union, Western Europe, UN, and multilateral security issues. Dr. Brimmer was also a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in spring 2000. From 1993-1995 she served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. In that capacity she worked on UN, peacekeeping, human rights and political-military issues. Dr. Brimmer has previously worked as a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, as a Legislative Analyst at the Democratic Study Group in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

On 29 May 2007, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Francis Deng of the Sudan as the new Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, succeeding Juan Méndez. Mr. Deng previously served as the Director of the Sudan Peace Support Project based at the United States Institute of Peace. He is also a Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a research professor of international politics, law and society at Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Deng was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. Mr. Deng served as Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons from 1992 to 2004, and from 2002 to 2003 was also a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Mr. Deng served as Human Rights Officer in the United Nations Secretariat from 1967 to 1972 and as the Ambassador of the Sudan to Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States. He also served as the Sudan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. After leaving his country’s service, he was appointed the first Rockefeller Brothers Fund Distinguished Fellow.