Jon Wolfsthal served as special assistant to former President Barack Obama and as senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council. Prior to that, he served as the deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. From 2009 to 2012, he was the special adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden for nuclear security and nonproliferation and a director for nonproliferation on the National Security Council. Wolfsthal served in several capacities during the 1990s at the US Department of Energy, including a posting in North Korea from 1995 to 1996. He was previously a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and deputy director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.