The second nuclear nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Russian Academy of Sciences was held in Moscow, March 18-20, 2009. CISAC's Siegfried S. Hecker and David Holloway, with Nikolay P. Laverov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, co-chaired the conference, which was held to discuss cooperation regarding nuclear nonproliferation, arms control and disarmament. According to the organizers, the nonproliferation regime is under great strain and could take another step backward when START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) expires in December 2009. Despite longstanding grievances on both sides, organizers said the conference environment reflected "cautious optimism" and that the two former superpowers may have reached a turning point in bilateral relations.

Jeremy M. Weinstein, an associate professor of political science, has been appointed Director for Democracy at the National Security Council (NSC). He will be responsible for democracy and governance-related issues and formulate broader U.S. government policies on global development.

"Jeremy brings a brilliant mind, inexhaustible energy, political savvy, and superb social science skills to his new position at the National Security Council," said Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). "In addition, his recent service on the Committee on the Evaluation of USAID Democracy Assistance Programs and his field research and experiments on governance in Africa should help him bring a creative approach to U.S. policies to advance democracy and improve governance around the world."

Weinstein's new position follows four other Stanford FSI appointments to the Obama administration. Political Science Professor Michael McFaul and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a former senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), also work at the NSC as special assistants to the President. McFaul heads Russian and Eurasian affairs and Sherwood-Randall is responsible for European affairs. Law Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuellar serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council in charge of directing criminal justice and immigration policy, and Paul Stockton, a former CISAC senior research scholar, is an assistant secretary of defense responsible for homeland defense and Americas' security affairs.

Weinstein, who is on leave from Stanford, is a faculty member at CDDRL and CISAC. His academic research focuses on civil wars, ethnic politics, the political economy of development, democracy and Africa.

Political Science Professor Scott D. Sagan, CISAC co-director, said although Weinstein is one of the nation's leading scholars on African politics his interests and expertise are much broader. "Jeremy has written compelling studies of the causes of civil war and the roots of conflict resolution and democratic reform," he said. "He will bring important insights from social science and history to help Washington policy-makers address complex policy problems throughout the developing world."

FSI Director Coit D. "Chip" Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies, who served under former President Bill Clinton, said the Obama administration is fortunate to have someone of Weinstein's caliber. "Jeremy's intellectual drive, his field experience with conflict-ridden countries, and his passion for democracy and better governance will help strengthen U.S. relations with states in transition and improve prospects for political and economic advance."

In 2008, during Obama's campaign, Weinstein served as an advisor on development and democracy. He continued working during the transition as a member of the National Security Policy Working Group and the Foreign Assistance Agency Review Team.

Weinstein, 34, is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence, which received the 2008 William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. His most recent book is Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action, published in 2009. He has also published articles in a variety of journals including Foreign Affairs, the American Political Science Review (APSR), the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy and the Journal of Democracy. Two articles in APSR, titled, "Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War" and "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision," received, respectively, the 2005 Sage Prize and 2007 Gregory Luebbert Award, and the 2008 Heinz Eulau Award and the 2008 Michael Wallerstein Award. In 2008, Weinstein also received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford.

Weinstein earned a bachelor's with high honors from Swarthmore College in 1997, and a master's and doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard University in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He is a native of Palo Alto, California.

Emily Meierding and Michael Sulmeyer have been awarded Zukerman Fellowships for the 2009-10 academic year. The fellowships are awarded to "exceptionally promising young scholars" working in the field of security studies at CISAC.

Meierding, a predoctoral fellow, studies territorial dispute dynamics, international conflict mediation and the political implications of climate change. She is pursuing a doctorate in political science at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation examines how the presence of petroleum resources affects the initiation and escalation of international territorial disputes and, to support this work, she has conducted research in Syria, Morocco, Nigeria and Cameroon. Meierding earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master's in political science from the University of Chicago.

Sulmeyer, this year's teaching assistant in CISAC's Honors Program in International Security Studies, graduated from the program himself in 2002. He applied after taking one of the center's signature courses, International Security in a Changing World. "I hadn't a clue about international security, but I was blown away listening to Dean Wilkening describe the three different layers of a national missile defense system," he recalled in an interview for CISAC's 2007 annual review. "I didn't know you could study something like that. This was a real treat. I went on to take as many courses as I could from CISAC-affiliated faculty and was first in line to sign up for the new CISAC undergraduate honors program."

Sulmeyer went on to spend a year working at the Pentagon and, later, as a Marshall Scholar, began a doctorate at Oxford University. His dissertation is titled, "Weapons under Fire: Terminating Major Weapons Contracts for the U.S. Military." While finishing his doctoral research, he is a second-year student at Stanford Law School where he has written about the legality of targeting killings in U.S. military operations. Sulmeyer is Oxford Analytica's U.S. defense budget and procurement writer and is a consultant at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

The Zukerman Fellowships are funded through a gift from Stanford alumna Karen D. Zukerman and Morris E. Zukerman, president of M.E Zukerman & Co. in New York and chairman of M.E. Zukerman Investments in London.