Reception to follow panel

About the event: This January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock one second forward to 89 seconds to midnight - the closest it has been in its nearly 80-year history. The experts that set the Doomsday Clock each year look at a variety issues such as climate change, the misuse of biological science, and a variety of emerging technologies. But central to the decision on how to set the Clock is nuclear risk, where the threats continue to grow.

Arms control structures and measures, built over the course of the last half-century, are crumbling and major powers have refused to engage in sustained, substantive dialogue on reducing nuclear risk. Proliferation risks are on the rise and it seems as if the world is poised at the starting line of a full-fledged multi-state nuclear arms race. Adding to the complication, emerging and disruptive technologies threaten to upend longstanding theories on deterrence and stability.

The outlook seems bleak, but with signals from President Trump and others about the need to talk or even "denuclearize," is there hope for a new era of arms control?

Join four leading experts from the Bulletin to discuss the panoply of current nuclear risks, as well as the methods and tools for reducing them.

About the speakers: 

Jerry Brown was sworn in as governor of California on January 3, 2011, and was reelected in 2014. Brown previously was elected governor in 1974 and served two terms, during which time he established the first agricultural labor relations law in the country, started the California Conservation Corp and promoted renewable energy. In 1970, he was elected California secretary of state. Brown began his career as a clerk at the California Supreme Court. In 1998, he reentered politics and was elected mayor of Oakland, serving two terms from 1999 to 2007. Brown founded the Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute, which serve students from the 6th grade through the 12th grade. He was also elected California attorney general in 2006. Brown graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his bachelor’s degree in classics and earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1964.

Alexandra Bell is the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. A noted policy expert and former diplomat, she oversees the Bulletin's publishing programs, management of the Doomsday Clock, and a growing set of activities around nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies.  Before joining the Bulletin, Alexandra Bell served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS) at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, she has worked at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the Council for a Livable World, Ploughshares Fund, and the Center for American Progress. Bell received a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the New School and a Bachelor’s degree in Peace, War and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2001-2003, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica. Bell is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Herb Lin is senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  His research interests relate broadly to policy-related dimensions of cybersecurity and cyberspace, and he is particularly interested in the use of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy and in the security dimensions of information warfare and influence operations on national security.  In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology, and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar and Senior Fellow in Cybersecurity (not in residence) at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies in the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; and a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.  Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Rose Gottemoeller is the William J. Perry Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute. Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. At Stanford, Gottemoeller teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contributes to policy research and outreach activities; and convenes workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation. 

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.