Patrick Johnston is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a CISAC predoctoral fellow. His dissertation, "Humanitarian Intervention and the Strategic Logic of Mass Atrocities in Civil Wars," asks why ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence frequently increase dramatically after international actors threaten to intervene militarily or deploy significant numbers of troops in coercive interventions. Johnston received a BA in history and a BA in political science, both with distinction, from the University of Minnesota, Morris and an MA in political science from Northwestern University.

Stephen J. Stedman joined CISAC in 1997 as a senior research scholar, and was named a senior fellow at FSI and CISAC and professor of political science (by courtesy) in 2002. He served as the center's acting co-director for the 2002-2003 academic year. Currently he directs the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford and CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies. His current research addresses the future of international organizations and institutions, an area of study inspired by his recent work at the United Nations. In the fall of 2003 he was recruited to serve as the research director of the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Upon completion of the panel's report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Annan asked Stedman to stay on at the U.N. as a special advisor with the rank of assistant secretary-general, to help gain worldwide support in implementing the panel's recommendations. Following the U.N. world leaders' summit in September 2005, during which more than 175 heads of state agreed upon a global security agenda developed from the panel's work, Stedman returned to CISAC. Before coming to Stanford, Stedman was an associate professor of African studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He has served as a consultant to the United Nations on issues of peacekeeping in civil war, light weapons proliferation and conflict in Africa, and preventive diplomacy. In 2000 Scott Sagan and he founded the CISAC Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies. Stedman received his PhD in political science from Stanford University in 1988.

Edward Miguel received his PhD at Harvard in 2000, the same year he joined UC Berkeley as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 2005. He recently received the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for Best Paper in Health Economics for "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities" (with Michael Kremer), which appeared in Econometrica. He also was the recipient of the 2005 Sloan Fellowship. At Berkeley he has received the Best Graduate Adviser Award and the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Professor Miguel is co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources, associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics and Review of Economics and Statistics, director of the U.C. Berkeley Scientific Evaluation for Global Action program, co-organizer for Working Group in African Political Economy, associate director at CIDER, an NBER faculty research associate, a CEPR research fellow, a senior fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, and a research affiliate at the MIT Poverty Action Lab. He also has worked as a consultant for non-governmental organizations on projects in Delhi, Kenya, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone.

Teresa Whitfield (speaker) joined the Social Science Research Council in early March 2005 to direct the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF). Her latest book, Friends Indeed: the United Nations, Groups of Friends and the Resolution of Conflict, was researched and written while a visiting fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. From 1995-2000 Teresa worked as an official within the UN’s Department of Political Affairs, latterly in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General of Political Affairs. She has also worked as a consultant with the Ford Foundation and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and has a long association with CPPF, serving as regional advisor on Latin America from 2001-2003 and as acting director from 2001-2002. Her research interests include the United Nations, peace operations and the mediation of internal conflict. She has published on peace processes in Central America and Colombia, as well as on the role played by informal groups of states, or “Friends” in the resolution of conflict. A journalist and filmmaker in her early career, Teresa’s publications include Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (Temple University Press, 1994), written while living in El Salvador from 1990-1992, and, most recently, a chapter on Colombia co-authored with Cynthia J. Arnson in Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2005). She holds an MA in Latin American studies from the University of London and a BA in English literature from Cambridge University.

Patrick Johnston (discussant) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a CISAC predoctoral fellow. His dissertation, "Humanitarian Intervention and the Strategic Logic of Mass Atrocities in Civil Wars," asks why ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence frequently increase dramatically after international actors threaten to intervene militarily or deploy significant numbers of troops in coercive interventions. Johnston received a BA in history and a BA in political science, both with distinction, from the University of Minnesota, Morris and an MA in political science from Northwestern University.

David Holloway (speaker) is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Michael May (discussant) is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988.  He served as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Rebecca Slayton (discussant) is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University and a CISAC affiliate. In 2004-2005 she was a CISAC science fellow. Her research examines how technical judgments are generated, taken up, and given significance in international security contexts. She is currently working on a book which uses the history of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program to study the relationships between and among technology, expertise, and the media. Portions of this work have been published in journals such as History and Technology and have been presented at academic conferences. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she recently completed an NSF-funded project entitled Public Science: Discourse about the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983-1988. 

As a physical chemist, she developed ultrafast laser experiments in condensed matter systems and published several articles in physics journals. She also received the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship in 2000, and has worked as a science journalist for a daily paper and for Physical Review Focus. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University in 2002.

Nuclear energy production today and in the near future will still be dominated by light-water reactors and therefore there will be a continued need for uranium enrichment. There is currently a focused attention on gas centrifuge enrichment. Gas centrifuge technology is much cheaper and efficient, but also poses a greater security concern, than the former gas diffusion technology.

In order to address the increased security concerns, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is planning and implementing strengthened safeguards procedures involving an increased reliance on continuous and remote monitoring technologies, and environmental sampling. The IAEA is also promoting multilateral enrichment centers as an additional avenue to enhance international security. Much of the current enrichment industry today already involves international partnerships such as between the US and European companies, or the tripartite agreement between Russia, China and the IAEA.

In order for safeguards and multilateral approaches to be viable and effective, they need to be accepted by industry, operators, states and the regulatory agencies. This talk will address how strengthened safeguards could be implemented while accommodating potentially conflicting interests such as: the protection of proprietary information, transparency in monitoring, applicability in multilateral arrangements, cost-effectiveness, and the ultimate goal of ensuring that enrichment activities remain peaceful.

Elena Rodriguez-Vieitez is a postdoctoral science fellow at CISAC, Stanford. Her research concerns proliferation risks associated with the global expansion of nuclear power. She received her PhD in nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation focused on nuclear physics experimental work conducted at cyclotron facilities at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Michigan State University, where she analyzed nuclear structure and fragmentation reaction data of neutron-rich unstable nuclei. As a nuclear engineering graduate student, she collaborated on a Department of Energy research project on radioactive waste transmutation in molten-salt reactors, where she modeled actinide transmutation efficiency and evaluated proliferation and environmental risks. As a graduate student, Rodriguez-Vieitez was also a research associate on public policy and nuclear threats at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Prior to her PhD studies, she was an intern at the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Radioactive Waste Management in Washington, DC.