The week of March 23, NSSPI hosted Ambassador Ana Teresa Dengo Benavides of Costa Rica. Ambassador Dengo served an extensive term as Costa Rica’s Ambassador to Austria and its Permanent Representative to the United Nations starting in August 2006. She concurrently served as the Chairperson of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Preparatory Commission for 2007. From 1998 to 2006, Ambassador Dengo worked with the CTBTO Preparatory Commission as an External Relations Officer and an International Cooperation and PTS Training Officer. Prior to this, she worked with the Organization of American States and the Peace Corps.
During her time in College Station, she participated in a roundtable discussion with NSSPI students and gave a lecture during a meeting of the Texas A&M Student Chapter of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) titled, “Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the Light of the Upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.”
Ambassador Dengo was accompanied by her spouse, Mr. Oscar Acuna, Section Head for the Division of Asia and the Pacific in the Department of Technical Cooperation at the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), who was at Texas A&M as part of an IAEA-sponsored educational exchange. The couple visited various facilities on the campus of Texas A&M and around the state during their time in Texas.
