Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar is a professor and Deane F. Johnson faculty scholar at Stanford Law School, the co-director of CISAC, professor (by courtesy) of political science, a faculty affiliate of CDDRL, and a senior fellow at FSI. A member of the Stanford faculty since 2001, he has served in the Obama and Clinton Administrations, testified before lawmakers, and has an extensive record of involvement in public service. His research and teaching focus on administrative law, executive power, and how organizations implement critical regulatory, public safety, migration, and international security responsibilities in a changing world. In July 2010, the President appointed him to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent agency charged with recommending improvements in the efficiency and fairness of federal regulatory programs.  He also serves on the Department of Education’s National Commission on Educational Equity and Excellence, and the Department of State’s Advisory Sub-Committee on Economic Sanctions. 

From early 2009 through the summer of 2010, he was on leave from Stanford serving as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy at the White House. In this capacity, he led the Domestic Policy Council’s work on criminal justice and drug policy, public health and food safety, regulatory reform, borders and immigration, civil rights, and rural and agricultural policy. Among other issues, Cuéllar worked on stricter food safety standards, the FDA’s regulatory science initiative, expanding support for local law enforcement and community-based crime prevention, enhancing regulatory transparency, and strengthening border coordination and immigrant integration. He negotiated provisions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act and the Food Safety Modernization Act, and represented the Domestic Policy Council in the development of the first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review.

Before working at the White House, he co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition’s Immigration Policy Working Group. During the second term of the Clinton Administration, he worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, where he focused on countering financial crime, improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption measures.

He has collaborated with or served on the board of several civil society organizations, including the Haas Center for Public Service, the Constitution Project, and the American Constitution Society. He has co-chaired the Regulatory Policy Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and served on the Silicon Valley Blue Ribbon Task Force on Aviation Security. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.

After graduating from Calexico High School in California’s Imperial Valley, he received an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford. He clerked for Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute. He also serves as the co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He has served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989), The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons(Princeton University Press, 1993), and with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000), the editor of Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2009), and co-editor with Steven E. Miller of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus, On the Global Nuclear Future (Fall 2009 and Winter 2010). His most recent publications include "Shared Responsibility for Nuclear Disarmament" in the fall 2009 issue of Daedalus and "The Case for No-First Use" in the June 2009 issue of Survival. In addition, he co-edited with Jane Vaynman a special issue of The Nonproliferation Review (March 2011) on the international impact of the 2010 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, also co-authoring the introduction and conclusion articles.  

Sagan has also won four teaching awards: the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009, the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award, Stanford University’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, and Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching.

Dramatic improvements and cost reductions in renewable energy technologies have occurred over the past decade and even greater improvements are expected in the years to come. In addition, plentiful unconventional gas resources in North America and potentially broadly around the world provide prospects for a long-term lower carbon-emitting fossil fuel for electricity production and other uses. This optimistic outlook is in stark contrast to the energy situation in developing countries. Even today, several billion people lack access to electricity and clean cooking fuels. Additionally, industries in these developing countries--which are crucial for raising people from poverty, suffer from unreliable electricity and fuel supplies, which dramatically lowers productivity. This talk will first discuss the promising developments in advanced energy technologies and then explore the prospects, challenges and options for addressing energy access in the developing countries.

About the speaker: Sally M. Benson was appointed GCEP Director in January 2009 after holding the Executive Director post since March 2007. A Professor (Research) in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering (ERE) in the School of Earth Sciences, Benson has been a member of Stanford’s faculty since 2007. Her research group in ERE investigates fundamental characteristics of carbon dioxide storage in geologic formations as a means of climate change mitigation. She teaches courses on carbon dioxide capture and storage and greenhouse gas mitigation technologies.

Prior to joining GCEP, Benson worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), serving in a number of capacities, including Division Director for Earth Sciences, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences, and Deputy Director for Operations. Benson graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in geology. She completed her graduate education in 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley, after receiving master’s and doctoral degrees, both in materials science and mineral engineering.

About the Topic: As fiscal year 2001 came to an end, the Hart-Rudman Commission and its recommendations for a post-Cold War national security structure were still on the agenda of Washington decision-makers. After the attacks of September 11, the comprehensive approach envisioned in Hart-Rudman was abandoned in favor of a piecemeal approach, resulting in such legislation as the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. As we enter what could be described as a "post-post-9/11 environment," it is worth asking whether the U.S. needs to consider a more comprehensive review, with Hart-Rudman as a starting point.

About the Speaker: William Nolte is research professor and director, Center for Intelligence Research and Education, at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland.  He retired from federal service in 2006 as the chancellor of the National Intelligence University system within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A career National Security Agency officer, he served in a range of positions as senior intelligence authority, director of education and training, and chief of legislative affairs at NSA; as deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia and later director of strategic planning at the National Intelligence Council; and as assistant deputy DCI for analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities.

This presentation will describe the NRC’s mission, the traditional approach to regulation of nuclear power facilities, and the NRC’s more recent use of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) in regulation. The presentation will also explore uncertainties in PRA and the role they play in NRC decision making.

About the speaker: The Honorable George Apostolakis was sworn in as a Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on April 23, 2010, to a term ending on June 30, 2014.

Dr. Apostolakis has had a distinguished career as an engineer, professor and risk analyst. Before joining the NRC, he was a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a member and former Chairman of the statutory Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards of the NRC.

In 2007, Dr. Apostolakis was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "innovations in the theory and practice of probabilistic risk assessment and risk management." He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Reliability Engineering and System Safety and is the founder of the International Conferences on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management. He received the Tommy Thompson Award for his contributions to improvement of reactor safety in 1999 and the Arthur Holly Compton Award in Education in 2005 from the American Nuclear Society.

Dr. Apostolakis is an internationally recognized expert in risk assessment. He has published more than 120 papers in technical journals and has made numerous presentations at national and international conferences. He has edited or co-edited eight books and conference proceedings and has participated in many probabilistic risk assessment courses and reviews.

Dr. Apostolakis received his diploma in electrical engineering from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece in 1969. He earned a master's degree in engineering science in 1970 and a Ph.D. in engineering science and applied mathematics in 1973, both from the California Institute of Technology.

About the Topic: Japan’s March 2011 Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami led to core damage in three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. This presentation will describe both the short-term and long-term actions of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to implement lessons learned from the Fukushima accident and will highlight Commissioner Apostolakis’ views on the accident. The presentation will also describe the findings of the Commissioner’s Risk Management Task Force chartered to develop a strategic vision and options for adopting a more comprehensive and holistic risk-informed, performance-based regulatory approach for the NRC.

About the Speaker: George Apostolakis was sworn in as a Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on April 23, 2010, to a term ending on June 30, 2014. 

Dr. Apostolakis has had a distinguished career as an engineer, professor and risk analyst. Before joining the NRC, he was a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He was also a member and former Chairman of the statutory Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards of the NRC. In 2007, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "innovations in the theory and practice of probabilistic risk assessment and risk management." He received the Tommy Thompson Award for his contributions to improvement of reactor safety in 1999 and the Arthur Holly Compton Award in Education in 2005 from the American Nuclear Society.

On May 18-19, the Program on Poverty and Governance will host a two-day conference on the provision of public goods and good governance throughout the world. This conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, will bring together an interdisciplinary group of economists, political scientists, policymakers, and public health researchers examining these questions. Public goods—goods and services such as education, healthcare, sanitation, potable water, and other benefits provided by the government—are intrinsically tied to issues of governance, which we broadly define as the exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society’s problems and affairs. More specifically, factors such how political leaders get elected, the way in which government projects get funded, whether the community participates in decision-making, and the extent to which the distribution of government benefits is done through clientelistic networks, among others, play an important role in the quality and coverage of public goods that governments provide. Additionally, a critical question in large parts of the developing world relates to the role of international players and foreign aid in the provision of public goods –does external provision of public goods enable or hinder governmental capacity to deliver public services in poor communities? Through two days of presentations and panel discussions, the conference will explore how various facets of governance affect the provision of public goods and services throughout the world.

The conference will be held in Encina Hall at Stanford University May 18th and 19th, 2012. Guests are encouraged to RSVP by May 16th. Any questions may be addressed to the Program on Poverty and Governance program associate Elena Cryst.

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