MUNUSAL
Secretariat 2023
XV edition
Jonas Simorangkir
Secretary General
Jonas Simorangkir is a biology student with a personal interest in ecology, biodiversity and zoology at the University of Bonn, Germany. Born in Indonesia and growing up in the Philippines, he discovered MUNs in his high school days. Since then, he has taken part in various Asian and European conferences in both online and offline formats, “infected” with what one would call the MUN “virus” and falling in love especially with the workings of MUN crisis and press works. Jonas considers his proudest MUN moments (as of yet, since MUNUSAL 2023 is yet to come around!) to be the successful organization of Global Goals Model United Nations 2021 as Secretary-General, BIMUN/SINUB 2020 as the Association’s Vice President and KULMUN 2022 as Deputy Secretary-General, the latter two being MUNUSAL’s beloved partner conferences. In MUNUSAL 2023, he is hoping to close the MUN chapter in his life with an amazing conference among friends both old and new, and of course fun and (dare I say?) fruitful debates.
Other than MUNing, he is a big fan of everything basketball (be it broadcasted games, live-in-person games, pickup games, video games, fantasy leagues), outdoor activities (after all, he is the son of two foresters), playing the piano (Beethoven!) and simply trying out as many new things as possible (you miss 100% of shots you don’t take).
Jonas is extremely excited to welcome you along with Julian in Salamanca next April at what will surely be a fantastic conference!
Julian Hurtubia Neitzel
Deputy Secretary General
Julian is a mechanical engineering student with a specialization in applied material science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He was born to a German Mother and a Chilean Father in the heart of Rome, with such international constellations becoming a constant in his youth due to his mother’s work at the UN. At the age of eight, he left the eternal city with his family to move to Yemen, which he later had to leave due to the deteriorating situation in the country. He then moved first to Ethiopia and later the Philippines, where he both had his first encounters with MUNing and met Jonas, with whom he quickly became great friends.
After finishing his Highschool education in Manila, Julian moved to Karlsruhe in Germany to begin his engineering studies. There, he joined MUNIKA, the local MUN association, and his initial interest in MUNing became a passion. Feeling right at home in the international setting, he quickly became the organization’s Treasurer and Board Member for 3 Semesters. Additionally, he co-organized MUNIKA’s yearly conference as a Member of the General Secretariat and has chaired in several other MUN Conferences, most recently in KULMUN in Leuven.
Currently holding a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, Julian is currently in the process of doing his master’s in the same subject. He is interested in anything from science and technology to history and politics. In his free time, he enjoys coffee, reading, jogging, and obsessively following current world events.
But most importantly, now Julian is looking forward to seeing all of you at MUNUSAL next April!
Leah Mathiesen
Crisis Director
Leah is a German-American currently in her last year of studying law at the University of Hamburg, focusing on International and European law. Her involvement with the MUN world started in her first semester at the HanseMUN society in 2017, and then continued with attending numerous conferences as a delegate, chair and secretariat member. Besides working, studying and doing MUN, she likes to spend her time with sports, reading and of course, typical for MUNers, traveling. She is excited to meet you all in beautiful Salamanca for an amazing Conference!"
Nicolas Cardona Townsend
Crisis Director
Nicolas is a 22-year-old Economics student at the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, he came to Europe in 2018 to study Mechanical Engineering in Hamburg. In 2019, he switched to Economics and moved to Bonn, where he is currently finishing his studies. Coming from Colombia he speaks Spanish as well as German, English and Portuguese.
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Nicolas started participating in MUNs at the age of 15. He quickly realized how much he enjoyed the MUN atmosphere and has since been a part of over 25 conferences. During his career he has been a part of 4 Crisis Committees either as Chair or as a Backroom member.
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On the little time where he is not MUNing or Studying, Nicolas can be found to make full use of his Streaming subscriptions to all services available.
José Grande Santalla
UNGA Chair
Jose tiene 23 años y está orgulloso de ser uno de los dos chairs del Comité en español. Su primer MUN fue Munusal 2019, en este mismo Comité; desde aquella no ha parado de descubrir el mundo de los MUN y conocer gente increíble.
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Es de Galicia, pero este año está viviendo en Bruselas con una beca. Anteriormente estudió Periodismo y un máster de Estudios Internacionales en la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. En su tiempo libre podéis encontrarlo normalmente viendo/jugando/hablando de fútbol (seguidor del Barcelona y el Racing de Ferrol), escuchando todo tipo de música (desde protopunk a cumbia de Santa Fe), leyendo, paseando o simplemente pasando un buen rato con amigos.
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En sus palabras, "si es tu primera vez en Salamanca, no lo olvidarás. Si es tu primera experiencia en un MUN, tampoco. Si ya has hecho ambas, sabes de lo que hablo. ¡Nos vemos pronto!".
Sebastián Cuevas
UNGA Chair
Sebastián Cuevas nació en Venezuela hace 21 años, debido a la situación de su país tuvo que emigrar a Panamá donde pasó casi toda su juventud y donde empezó su vida en el mundo del MUN, luego de 9 años, tuvo que mudarse a Perú para finalizar sus bachillerato y finalmente a España para estudiar en la universidad. Actualmente estudia Ciencias Políticas en la Universidad de Salamanca. Para Sebastián, haberse mudado entre estos países le ha permitido tener experiencias culturales diferentes y también a pensar de una manera un poco más abierta. Desde pequeño siempre ha sentido impotencia por los problemas que pasan en su país y en el mundo sin poder hacer nada, esta impotencia le ha servido como motor y motivación para poder llegar en algún momento a ayudar en una escala local o global a las personas que lo necesitan. Debido a esto y a otros motivos a Sebastián le empezó a interesar el mundo del MUN, donde ya lleva más de 7 años siendo delegado y mesa directiva, ya que considera que además de ser muy divertidos, también funcionan como una formación profesional para el futuro.
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Está muy feliz poder ser parte de MUNUSAL y no puede esperar por verlos en abril.
Tomás Branco
UNCSTD Chair
Tomás is a 19 year old law student from Lisbon, who has lived most of his life in the Portuguese capital where he was born, having also lived in the city of Évora for 5 years.
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He only discovered the world of MUNs last year when he got into college, having his first official MUN as KULMUN. In just one year he has participated in nearly a dozen MUNs as both delegate and chair.
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He is an addict of older music, from classical to the 80s who currently spends most of his free time watching every movie ever made.
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It's his first time in Salamanca, but he wouldn't dare miss it since everyone says its a party conference and that's just what he loves!
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See you there!
Koen Kockx
UNCSTD Chair
Koen Kockx is a 22-year old law student from Belgium, studying in Leuven where he focuses on on international and European law. He discovered MUN’ing in 2021 when he joined the BIMUN conference and has since then taken part in MUN’s all over Europe, falling in love with it. He is also the Vice-conference manager of the KULMUN 2022-2023 executive board, where he is a part of the team organising the KULMUN 2023 conference.
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When not MUN’ing, Koen loves to talk or debate about politics, international issues and history. He is also an avid basketball fan so you go ahead and use this as a conversation starter! After joining MUNUSAL last year as a delegate, Koen is super excited about joining the secretariat and to make this conference as fun as possible!
Wendy Dewit
UNSC Chair
Wendy Dewit is a 22-year old International Politics student at the KU Leuven in Belgium and she is currently on exchange at the University of Tübingen. She grew up in Belgium and used to travel back to China every year to visit her family on her mother's side. Back in her high school years, the bug of politics had bitten her from a young age. She participated in multiple debating projects and discovered her passion for negotiations and policy-making.
That politics bug never let go of her, resulting in her joining KULMUN in her first bachelor in 2018. Wendy has had two years of experience in the Executive Board of KULMUN as Secretary and President, this year she is the Conference Manager of KULMUN 2023. After attending almost 15 MUN conferences all over Europe as a Delegate, Journalist, Secretariat member and Excom, Wendy has experienced how amazing MUNing can be, and most importantly, the amazing people that attend these conference.
In her free time, Wendy enjoys hanging out with her friends and reading books. She especially likes reading Historical Fantasy Books, which she is always down to talk about. MUNUSAL will be her first time visiting the beautiful city of Salamanca, which she is very excited about.
Christine Langman
UNSC Chair
Christine Langman is a native to Panama City, Panama, and is currently located in Salamanca, Spain. A Fine Arts student at University of Salamanca, she has followed her interest for Model UN after 5 years of previous experience.
Christine has participated in multiple conferences as a delegate, a chair and Excom member; and has attended conferences internationally in cities such as New York, Montreal and Santo Domingo, where she enjoys discussing humanitarian topics and issues in our current world. One of the things she appreciates the most about the world of Model UN is the opportunity to meet people from around the world and form connections with others.
Apart from MUN, Christine is a lover of the arts, animation and musical theatre. You can talk to her about Taylor Swift's entire discography and invite her to your minecraft server and she'll have a good time.
She's looking forward to meeting the delegates and getting to share the Munusal experience as her first time chairing in the conference.
Aitor Anseeuw
Editor-in-chief for The Globe
Aitor is a third year student of Linguistics and Literature at the KU Leuven in Belgium. He got in contact with the world of MUN in his first year of secondary school at the age of 12. Since then he has participated in several conferences as delegate, journalist and as part of the secretariat. He has also been an active member of the MUN student association of his university since 2019.
In his spare time he enjoys doing all kinds of water sports, reading every book he might hear of or listening to every genre of music. As Editor-in-Chief, he is definitely looking forward to meeting his team and make of The Globe if this year’s edition the best one yet.
Lisa Lendermann
Editor-in-chief for The Globe
Lisa Lendermann is born and raised in Germany and studies geography at the university of Bonn. In her free time she loves to travel, hanging out with friends and doing different sports. During her first semester in Bonn she became aware of MUNing and the annual MUN conferences of the Bonn International Model United Nation association (BIMUN/SINUB e.V). The MUN Conference 2021 was the first MUN conference she attended to and the primal MUN experience at all. Lisa got so intrigued by MUNing that she decided to participate at the 14th MUNUSAL conference in Salamanca, Spain.
After the conference took place in April 2022, she joined the Executive Committee of the BIMUN/SINUB e.V association and belongs to the current PR & Media department. She enjoys working with the Press, which why she is glad to be part of The Globe in Salamanca.