Celebrating Our 2024 Honorees

Ambassador Elayne Whyte was Costa Rica’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. In 2017, she chaired the diplomatic conference that negotiated the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Previously, Ambassador Whyte was the first and youngest woman, and the first person of African descent, to be appointed Costa Rica’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. She served as the executive director of the Mesoamerica Integration & Development Project, which coordinates and delivers social and economic development projects across the Central American region. Ambassador Whyte is currently a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She is recipient of the International Peace Bureau’s Seán MacBride Peace Prize, and now, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Women Waging Peace Award.

Véronique Christory is the Senior Arms Control Adviser for the International Committee of the Red Cross Delegation to the UN. Since 1997, Véronique has promoted and developed laws regulating the use of weapons, including conventional and nuclear weapons as well as new technologies. She participated in all the negotiations related to the weapons issues at the United Nations over the last two decades, notably the Arms Trade Treaty (2013), and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017).  She holds an MA in International Relations and an MA in Russian, Slavic, and Eastern European Studies INALCO in Paris. She is proud mother of four children and was the inspiration behind two plays by Chris Thorpe: A Family Business and Talking About the Fire. Véronique is a member of the Albright Ambassadors Council of The Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College, the recipient of the 2018 Compassion Award from an international Catholic NGO, Heart’s Home, and now, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Women Waging Peace Award.

Patricia Ellsberg graduated from Harvard University and subsequently hosted a her own nationally-syndicated radio program where she explored spiritual and social issues with leading figures in the arts, politics, and sciences. In 1971, she helped her husband, the late Daniel Ellsberg, release the Pentagon Papers to the press, an act of courage that helped bring about the end of the Vietnam War. Both Dan and Patricia were inspired by Gandhi’s concept of the Truth-Force. Along with following a spiritual path, Patricia has been a long-time social change activist and public speaker. A central theme of her life has been bridging spiritual experience with social transformation. Patricia is the inaugural recipient of the Daniel Ellsberg Life Achievement Award, awarded to her by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.