Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) welcomes two leading scholars of nuclear security and nonproliferation. Jeffrey Lewis joins CISAC as the William J. Perry Lecturer, while Or (Ori) Rabinowitz joins as a Senior Research Scholar, with appointments at both CISAC and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s (CDDRL) Jan Koum Israel Studies Program. Together, they bring complementary expertise spanning nuclear weapons policy, proliferation, open-source intelligence, nuclear diplomacy, and security in the Middle East and East Asia. 

“CISAC is fortunate to have Jeffrey Lewis and Ori Rabinowitz join our intellectual community,” said CISAC co-director Scott Sagan. “Each of them have published important books and articles on nuclear weapons and international security and they both have strong track records of teaching and training the next generation of scholars and practitioners.”

Dr. Lewis’ work focuses on nuclear nonproliferation and strategy, and weapons programs in East Asia, with emphasis on China and North Korea. He is also a leading practitioner of open-source intelligence, using satellite imagery, photography, and other information sources to analyze nuclear and missile developments.

He is the author of The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and Paper Tigers: China's Nuclear Posture (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014), as well as a novel of speculative fiction, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States (Mariner, 2018). he has written for leading journals, including Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Policy magazine, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Nonproliferation Review and New Scientist among other journals. 

Previously, Dr. Lewis was a Distinguished Scholar of Global Security at Middlebury College, a full professor of nonproliferation studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, and executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He also worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Lewis was a member of the U.S. Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board.

Dr. Lewis received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Augustana College and a Ph.D. in Policy Studies from the University of Maryland.

“Jeffrey and Ori are fantastic appointments for CISAC. Risks of nuclear weapons use, and nuclear proliferation have, unfortunately, come roaring back in recent years,” said incoming CISAC co-director Jim Fearon. “These are two top scholars in this area, both actively engaged informing policy debates that are getting going.”

Dr. Rabinowitz arrives at Stanford following her time as a tenured Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her research focuses on nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation, international nuclear diplomacy, and U.S.-Israeli security relations. Her work examines the policies and partnerships that have shaped efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons in the middle east.

Dr. Rabinowitz is the author of Bargaining on Nuclear Tests, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Her second book, Protecting the Nuclear Monopoly, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, examines the evolution of U.S.–Israeli collaboration in countering nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. She has published widely in leading academic journals as well as in prominent policy and public-facing outlets, including Social Studies of Science, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Washington Post, and several others.

A recipient of the British Foreign Office’s Chevening Scholarship, Dr. Rabinowitz completed her PhD in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London in 2011. She is the recipient of multiple grants and distinctions, including two competitive personal grants from the Israel Science Foundation.