Abstract: What drives jihadi violence in Europe? Terrorists of today are seen as pursuing social rather than political revolt, motivated by failed integration, identity crisis and nihilism. Europe's segregated suburbs are regarded as incubators for violent radicalization, and some suggest online propaganda produces 'lone wolves' who act in unpredictable, volatile fashions.  An examination of jihadi terrorist plots in Europe between 1994 and 2015 contradicts such assumptions. Terrorist cells emerge through intricate interplay between jihadi groups in war zones and European extremists.  Most cells are traced to the same transnational network, which has evolved and expanded since the early 1990s. The plots are linked in time and space through people involved, and there are striking similarities between cases. This talk will reveal that lone wolves are largely a myth in Europe, as most perpetrators have network ties and interact with militants during radicalization. Terrorist cell formation is not confined to gritty suburbs and disenfranchised immigrants are not necessarily key actors. On the contrary, cells emerge in diverse settings where resourceful, well-connected and ideological entrepreneurs (cell builders) are present. Entrepreneurs recruit misfits and drifters as manpower, and embody the foremost driving force for the occurrence of plots and attacks.

About the Speaker: Petter Nesser (Cand. Polit, Dr. Philos) is a senior research fellow with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). Trained in social science, Middle East studies and Arabic at the University of Oslo and The American University in Cairo, Dr Nesser has conducted extensive research on jihadism in Europe for more than twelve years. His work focuses mainly on radicalization processes and terrorists’ modus operandi. Nesser communicates findings through conferences, speeches, and the media. He teaches at academic institutions and acts as advisor for Norwegian authorities on issues related to extremism. His most recent publication, Islamist Terrorism in Europe, A History (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2015), provides a comprehensive account of the emergence and evolution of transnational militant Islamism in Western Europe.

- Please note that this is a joint CISAC/Science seminar -

Join Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) Greg Treverton for a discussion on the NIC's work and how it connects to U.S. policy and wider global forecasting, along with a preview of the NIC's upcoming Global Trends report. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Treverton started his duties as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council on September 8, 2014. Prior to his selection, Treverton held several leadership positions at RAND Corporation, including director of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center, and associate dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His work at RAND examined terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement, as well as new forms of public–private partnership. 

Treverton has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, handling Europe for the National Security Council and later, as vice chair of the National Intelligence Council (1993–1995), overseeing the writing of America's National Intelligence Estimates. 

His RAND publications on intelligence include: “Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence: Assessing the Options” (2008), “Assessing the Tradecraft of Intelligence Analysis” (with C. Bryan Gabbard, 2008) and “The Next Steps in Reshaping Intelligence” (2005). Two books, Intelligence for an Age of Terror and Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information, were published by Cambridge University Press in 2009 and 2001, respectively. 

Treverton holds an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and an M.P.P. and Ph.D. in economics and politics from Harvard University. 

Abstract: Various regions of the world struggle to properly manage their freshwater resources in a sustainable manner. Even a greater number of regions are vulnerable to supply disruptions that can last for a year or more.  This talk will provide a global overview of water supply vulnerability with respect to demand, endowment, institutions, and infrastructure.  Examples of regional hydroeconomic models to evaluate potential management policies will be discussed with a focus on our approach to the challenges of coupling human-natural systems.  

About the Speaker: Steven Gorelick is the Cyrus F. Tolman Professor in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. At Stanford since 1988, he directs the Global Freshwater Initiative, which employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing water-supply vulnerability in developing nations. Past and current projects include those in Mexico, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Jordan. Much of his work involves development of hydrologic-economic models to evaluate the likely effectiveness of policy instruments such as taxes, quotas, and regulations. Projects also have evaluated the viability of an agricultural water rental market and alternatives to enhance food security. He has over 140 publications in 22 different science and engineering journals (including Science, Nature, and PNAS), and three commercialized patents. His 2010 book, Oil Panic and the Global Crisis, debated the notion of imminent global oil depletion. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and he has received Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. 

Abstract: On 13 February 2016, in a widely-reported interview for the BBC, Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defense, made clear that the US Government supported the maintenance and renewal of Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent force of Trident submarines.  According to Carter, Trident enabled Britain to ‘continue to play that outsized role on the world stage that it does because of its moral standing and its historical standing.’  However, during the early 1960s, attitudes in Washington to the UK’s independent nuclear capabilities were altogether different.  This paper will begin with a re-examination of Robert McNamara’s famous address at Ann Arbor in June 1962 when he openly criticised the existence of independent allied nuclear forces.  Using new evidence, it will chart the background to the speech, the reception it was accorded, and how it helped to intensify tensions in Anglo-American relations when the Skybolt missile system was cancelled by the US at the end of the same year.  The paper will also show how by the end of the Johnson administration, and the tenure of McNamara’s period as Secretary of Defense, the US had become reconciled to the continued existence of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent and even begun to take steps to assist with its improvement.  

About the Speaker: Matthew Jones is Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science. After receiving his DPhil from St Antony's College, Oxford, he was appointed to a Lectureship in the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London in 1994, and subsequently promoted to Reader in International History before moving to the University of Nottingham in 2004, and then to the LSE in 2013.  His interests span post-war British and US foreign policy, nuclear history, and the histories of empire and decolonization in South East Asia.  His books include Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942-44 (Macmillan, 1996), Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia, and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and After Hiroshima: The United States, Race, and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965, (CUP, 2010).   In 2008, Jones was commissioned by the Cabinet Office to write a two-volume official history of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent, covering the period between 1945 and 1982, the first volume of which has now been completed.   

As the U.S.-India relationship continues to grow into the 21st century, a new regional construct has the potential for developing along with it. At the confluence of India's Act East foreign policy and the United States' strategic rebalance to Asia lies the relatively undefined domain of the Indo-Pacific. This seminar will touch upon the efforts of the Obama Administration to further this "defining partnership of the 21st century", and then delve into the potential future of the Indo-Pacific and the strategic implications and challenges of a developing Indo-Pacific reality from political, economic, security, and technological perspectives

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Prior to joining the White House, Mr. Reiner worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, where he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service; and at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. Mr. Reiner holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Religions with a minor in History from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and daughter.

This event is co-sponsored by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center for International Security and Cooperation 

Abstract: The Federal response to dual use pathogens is being actively debated. We are at a critical juncture between free science exploration and government policy. Should science be regulated? We impede discovery and innovation at our peril. Yet, this issue must be viewed through the lens of the looming  infectious disease threat, globalization and its consequences, and environmental challenges such as climate change.

About the Speaker: Lucy Shapiro is a Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine where she holds the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Chair in Cancer Research and is the Director of Stanford’s Beckman Center for Molecular & Genetic Medicine. She is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and is a member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Biosciences, Inc. She founded the anti-infectives discovery company, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, that was recently sold to Pfizer. She has co-founded a second company, Boragen LLC, providing novel antifungals for agriculture and the environment. Her studies of the control of the bacterial cell cycle and the establishment of cell fate has yielded fundamental insights into the living cell and garnered her multiple awards including the International Canadian Gairdner Award, the Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award, the Selman Waksman Award and the Horwitz Prize. In 2013 President Obama awarded her the US National Medal of Science. She is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Abstract: Somebody once said, “What a damn fool can do for a dollar, an engineer can do for a nickel.” Thinking about cost as an engineering constraint brings new life to ideas. This is what makes the difference between an idea influencing a hundred people or a billion. With our planet literally teeming with problems (ecological, health and social), it’s time to take cost constraints into serious consideration. As physicists, we like to make stuff. We use these skills (and field work) to design solutions for extremely resource constrained settings, specially in the field of global health. I will discuss our current work from field diagnostics to high-throughput vector ecology and hands on science education and talk about it’s implication in a global context. I will also discuss outcomes, and lessons from a global experiment - Foldscope (a 50 cent origami microscope); where we shipped 50,000 origami microscopes around the world (130+) countries enabling curious users to discover and explore the microscopic world surrounding them. 

About the Speaker: Manu Prakash is an assistant professor in bioengineering. He leads a curiosity driven research group, focused on technological interventions in extreme resource-poor settings, tackling global public health problems. A physicist and a prolific inventor, his inventions include a 50 cent “print-and-fold” paper microscope, a $5 chemistry lab, a computer that works by moving water droplets in a magnetic fields, and Oscan, a 3-D printed smartphone add-on that helps diagnose oral carcinomas responsible for 40% of cancer-related deaths in India. Professor Prakash has been distinguished as a Frederick E. Terman Fellow (2011-2013), a Pew Scholar (2013-2017), a top innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review (2014) and in the Brilliant 10 by Popular Science (2014). Born in Meerut, India, Prakash earned a BTech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur before moving to the United States. He did his master’s and PhD at MIT before founding the Prakash Lab at Stanford.

Abstract: The interactions between biological and cultural processes are critical determinants of human health. Successful public health programs must therefore be based on a synthesis of biological and anthropological research. By disentangling the impacts of behavior and biology on human health, we can update health care objectives and practices. Human movements and shifts in settlements across short and long time scales can result in misallocated health care resources and inefficient response to crises. I develop methods to quantify changing human population sizes and distributions to improve resource allocation in both routine health care settings and crisis response. This ranges from assessing health care system capacity for stable populations to outbreak control through vaccination and rapid response following population-scale disruptions due to natural disasters or political instability. This approach is also valuable in informing predictive mathematical models of human interactions and demographics to provide insight into a broader spectrum of human health issues. Here, I demonstrate these concepts specifically for the transmission and prevention of infectious diseases and access to health care in low-income settings ranging from rural Africa to urban America. 

About the Speaker: Nita Bharti is a Branco Weiss Society in Science fellow with an interdisciplinary background in Biology (PhD) and Anthropology (MA). She is a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Woods Institute of the Environment with a research associate appointment in the Biology Department and Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State University. Her research integrates methods across social and natural sciences to identify and solve problems in human health, often in low-income settings. In addition to academic researchers across a wide variety of disciplines, her collaborators frequently include outreach and non-profit organizations as well as local authorities on public health and safety.

Abstract: Technological and social forces are allowing the growth of science outside a professionalized context.  The Internet, mobile devices, and public availability of big data are technological facilitators of “citizen science”, in part through enabling data sharing, analysis, and communication.  These technological changes now allow the entire scientific process, from funding and development of a research agenda, to conduct, analysis and dissemination and application of findings, to take place without the involvement of any science professionals or research-related institutions.  However, most ethical and regulatory frameworks for biomedical science arose from concepts of obligations of professionals and (largely not-for-profit) institutions.  We will discuss current examples of “citizen science” in biology and clinical research, and the ethical and policy implications.

About the Speaker: Mildred Cho is a Professor in the Division of Medical Genetics of the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University, Associate Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, and Director of the Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics. She received her B.S. in Biology in 1984 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in 1992 from the Stanford University Department of Pharmacology.  Her post-doctoral training was in Health Policy as a Pew Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco and at the Palo Alto VA Center for Health Care Evaluation.  She is a member of international and national advisory boards, including for Genome Canada, the March of Dimes, and the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine.  Her current research projects examine ethical and social issues in research on the human genome and microbiome, synthetic biology and genome editing, and the ethics at the intersection of clinical practice and research.  

Abstract: Why do some rebel groups use terrorism as a tactic while others do not? Why some opposition groups engage in terrorism while others do not is of obvious importance both to the study of terrorism more generally, and to policy makers. But most existing studies of terrorism are not well-equipped to answer this question as they lack an appropriate comparison category. This project examines terrorism in the context of civil war to remedy this problem. I argue that terrorism is more likely to be used when it is expected to be most effective, namely against democratic governments and those most reliant on tourism, and when the otherwise prohibitive legitimacy costs of using terrorism are expected to be lowest. I argue that legitimacy costs vary with factors such as government regime type, rebel aims, rebel funding sources, and government targeting of civilians/repression. I also explore prominent alternative arguments, including the notion that terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and that it is caused by competition among groups (outbidding).

About the Speaker: Page Fortna is Chair of the Political Science Department at Columbia University. Her research focuses on terrorism, the durability of peace in the aftermath of both civil and interstate wars, and war termination. She is the author of two books: Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents Choices after Civil War (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace (Princeton University Press, 2004). She has published articles in journals such as World Politics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and International Studies Review. She is currently working on a project on terrorism in civil wars. 

Fortna is a member of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. She received the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Studies Association in 2010. She has held fellowships at the Olin Institute at Harvard, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Hoover Institution. She received her BA from Wesleyan University and her PhD from Harvard University in 1998.