Although we recognize that our world leaders need to know the difference between Shiite and Sunni, we often assume that they don't need to understand the difference between a plutonium bomb and a dirty bomb. Good scientific advice is necessary but not sufficient; our leaders need to understand the technology.  In our high tech world, poor understanding has led to poor decisions in everything from nuclear waste storage to addressing global warming.   I'll illustrate this by touching on key scientific aspects of four broad subjects: terrorism and counterterrorism; energy; nukes (weapons and power sources); and climate change.  These are topics covered in my course at Berkeley, and in my recent book, "Physics for Future Presidents." (Norton, 2008).

Richard A. Muller is known for his broad range of achievements, in fields ranging from particle physics to geophysics, applied physics, astrophysics, physics education, and climate change. His skill at explaining science to non-scientists was honed over decades of advising top business and government leaders. His course, titled "Physics for Future Presidents", was voted by the study body to be the "Best Class at Berkeley."

Muller graduated from Columbia College in New York, and went to graduate school at Berkeley, where he studied under (soon to be) Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez. After he earned his Ph.D. (in particle physics) he instigated a series of innovative physics projects, including a study of the cosmic microwave radiation, about which he wrote a Scientific American Article in 1978, and which eventually led to a Nobel Prize for his protege, George Smoot.  He developed a new way to measure radioisotopes (called "Accelerator Mass Spectrometry"), now one of the most widely used techniques in the world for radioisotope tracing in medicine and dating for geology.  He coined the name "Nemesis" for a star that he and his colleagues suggested is orbiting the sun at great distance.  He created a supernova search program at Berkeley; his graduate student Saul Perlmutter eventually took over the project, and became the co-discoverer of the dark energy.  Muller has published major papers on the analysis of lunar soil, adaptive optics, paleoclimate, reversals of the Earth's magnetic field, and analysis of cycles in the fossil record.  He has over 130 published papers, eight books, and four patents.

His most recent book, "Physics for Future Presidents," was published by Norton in 2008.  He hopes it will influence our new president.

His achievements have been honored by many awards, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius" prize, the Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation, the Texas Instruments Founders Prize.  He was named by Newsweek Magazine in 1989 as one of the top 25 innovators in the United States in all fields.  He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Muller's primary work in recent years has been in climate change, energy independence, alternative energy, and high-tech innovation.  He was a Jason consultant to the the US Government on national security issues for 34 years, and is now a technology consultant for several companies.

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Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Emilie Hafner-Burton is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at Princeton University and an affiliate at CISAC, as well as a visiting fellow at Stanford Law School. Formerly she was a predoctoral fellow at CISAC and an associated fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She was at Oxford University as a Postdoctoral Research Prize Fellow, Nuffield College, and Senior Associate, Global Economic Governance Programme. She writes and teaches on international organization, international political economy, the global governance of gender, social network analysis, design and selection of international regimes, international human rights law and policy, war and economic sanctions, non-proliferation policy, and quantitative and qualitative research design. Her dissertation, Globalizing Human Rights? How Preferential Trade Agreements Shape Government Repression, 1972-2000, won the American Political Science Association Helen Dwight Reid Award for Best Dissertation in International Relations, Law and Politics for 2004-2005, as well as the Best Dissertation in Human Rights Prize for 2003-2004. Her articles are published or forthcoming in International Organization, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Feminist Legal Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, and Journal of Peace Research. PhD. Wisconsin.

Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. He is co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He joined the Stanford faculty in July 1999, after previously teaching at the University of Arizona, MIT, and Yale. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences three times, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna twice. Powell has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, the Helsinki School of Economics, and Copenhagen Business School, and is a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He is a U.S. editor for Research Policy, and has been a member of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council since 2000.