Elizabeth Levy Paluck (speaker) received her PhD in 2007 from Yale University in Social Psychology. Her research focuses on the political psychology of prejudice and conflict reduction, in particular the role of mass media, community dialogue, and education. She has conducted the bulk of her fieldwork using field experiments and qualitative methods in Central Africa and in the US. She is currently an Academy Scholar at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Desha Girod (discussant) is a doctoral candidate at Stanford, where she researches the effects of international organizations on local institution-building. She is devoting her fellowship at CDDRL to completing her dissertation, "Why being poor helps postwar development." For her dissertation, Desha carried out field work in Mozambique and Uganda. In addition, she is conducting a study on democracy promotion after regime change by investigating the impact of US intervention in Panama, where she also did field work. Another study investigates the effects of remittances on access to public goods in Mexico. Desha's advisors at Stanford include Jim Fearon, Steve Krasner, David Laitin, and Jeremy Weinstein.

Carol Atkinson (speaker) is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. She retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 2005. While in the military she served in a wide variety of management and operational positions in the fields of intelligence, targeting, and combat assessment. During the Cold War she flew on the Strategic Air Command's nuclear airborne command post as a target analyst. During Operation Desert Storm (1991) she worked on the intelligence staff in Riyadh, and, subsequently, on the contingency planning staff in Dhahran/Khobar, Saudi Arabia. While in the military, she taught at the Air Force Academy and the Air Force's Command and Staff College. Atkinson holds a PhD in international relations from Duke University, an MA in geography from Indiana University, and a BS from the United States Air Force Academy (5th class with women). She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Atkinson's primary research focuses on U.S. military-to-military contacts as channels of international norm diffusion. She is also working on a project examining the influence of educational exchange programs on democratization and a project on the social construction of the biological warfare threat in the United States.

Frank Smith (discussant) is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Chicago and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research examines military and civilian decisions about biological warfare and tests different theories about the sources of military research, development, and doctrine, as well as the rise of civilian biodefense. In addition, he has worked on a variety of projects that address technology and national security at the RAND Corporation, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He earned his BS in biological chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2000.

Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBCs) have been charged with the oversight and review of biosafety at thousands of biocontainment labs nationwide, hundreds of which are high level BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs.  In light of the recent rapid proliferation of BSL-3 and BSL-4 facilities and the increases in biodefense, select agent, recombinant DNA, synthetic biology, and dual use research, questions have been raised about whether IBCs are fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.  This presentation will review information on the responsibilities and expectations of IBCs as currently constituted, and provide an analysis of IBC performance from survey data of hundreds of research institutions over the past 4-5 years.  The findings highlight serious ongoing problems with IBCs adhering to the NIH Guidelines. This does little to reassure that the current voluntary governance framework is an effective system to monitor and oversee US research facilities, including high-containment facilities, and their research activities. The findings strongly suggest the need for immediate improvement or replacement of the IBC system.

Margaret Race is an ecologist working with NASA through the SETI Institute in Mountain View CA and a former CISAC Science Fellow. She recently completed a study on public decision making and risk communication associated with the construction of BSL-3 and BSL-4 biocontainment labs nationwide.  The study, which was begun during her fellowship at Stanford University and CISAC, reflects her longstanding interest in risk perceptions, legal and societal issues, public communication and education associated with controversial science and technological proposals.  In her work with NASA, she focuses on planetary protection and the search for extraterrestrial life--which will someday involve construction of a BSL-4 biocontainment lab for handling and testing scientific samples returned from Mars and other solar system locations. During the past decade, she has been a lead member of an international team of researchers that helped NASA develop a protocol for the quarantine, handling, and testing of extraterrestrial samples from Mars. She has served on numerous National Resource Council studies analyzing risk communication and societal issues associated environmental protection on Earth and in space. Dr. Race received her BA degree in Biology and MS degree in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and her PhD in Ecology/Zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. Her teaching and research work has included positions at Stanford University (Human Biology Program), UC Berkeley (Assistant Dean, College of Natural Resources), and Office of the President, University of California (Senior Science Policy Analyst and Director of Planning). She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in Marine Policy and Ocean Management at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

 Is military conflict in space inevitable? Has former president Eisenhower’s vision of keeping space peaceful become outdated? How can the United States secure its space interests and assets without provoking international violence? Bound by a treaty written and signed forty years ago, every space-faring nation—save the U.S. and Israel—has gone on record in favor of a new agreement. A new Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty could address changes in the post-Cold War world as well as modern satellite and weapons technologies that the 1967 treaty could not anticipate. But in the grand tradition of American exceptionalism, Washington has largely avoided the issue. The administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have blocked negotiations, citing potential threats to U.S. “rights, capabilities, and freedom of action.” Self-proclaimed “space warriors” even argue that U.S. military dominance in orbital space will be the only guarantee for international peace in the future. In Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance, Moore argues that the U.S. merely provokes conflict when it presumes to be the exception to the rule. “Unilateral military actions in space will not guarantee American security; they will guarantee conflict, and possibly, a new cold war,” Moore concludes.

Mike Moore is an author, journalist, and speaker, and research fellow at The Independent Institute. He is the author of many articles on national security, conflict resolution, nuclear weapons and proliferation, space weaponry, and related topics. Mike has spoken at many professional conferences and meetings sponsored by scientific organizations and policy institutes. Moore is the former editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2000, and he has also served as editor of Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was general editor of Health Risks and the Press: Perspectives on Media Coverage of Risk Assessment and Health and has been an editor or reporter for the Milwaukee Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, and the Kansas City Star. His articles have appeared in the Brown Journal of World Affairs, Foreign Service Journal, Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, and The SAIS Review and International Affairs. He has contributed chapters to The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy, Cyberwar, Netwar and the Revolution in Military Affairs and Asia-Pacific Cooperative Security in the 21st Century. Moore has spoken at the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Fudan University (Shanghai), the National Atomic Museum, the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, the Nuclear-Free Future Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Stanley Foundation, the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts, the Eisenhower Institute, and the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.

We examine two interrelated questions. How and where do we need to deploy nuclear detection portals in the real world? On the basis of which physical techniques should we design the technology to use in these portals? Today's national initiatives like the 9/11 Commission Act for scanning 100% of cargo at foreign ports of origin may be useful for interception of smuggled materials that are already assumed to be in transit -- by simply creating a roadblock for smuggling on high traffic routes, this does not get us any closer to dissuading adversaries from attacking by other means. Today's programs ignore the options (loopholes) within reach of the adversary that use alternative routes or countermeasures the attacker can employ against the detection technology. Loopholes can come as technical countermeasures usable against today's technology like passive gamma detection (shielding, fractionation) or against future technology like cosmic muon detection (dispersion, spreading). Loopholes may also be present in the form of transportation pathways not secured by any detection technology (private jets, sailboats, luxury cruise ships, and so on). In this talk, we discuss transportation loopholes and technical countermeasures in planned US initiatives using drive-thru nuclear detection portals for intercepting uranium. In addition to well-known countermeasures like shielding, we identify a novel countermeasure to cosmic muon detection based on horizontal spreading or dispersion. We show how to integrate passive gamma, neutron, muon, and active neutron detection techniques to make reliable detection portals (RDPs) invulnerable to simple countermeasures. We show where RDPs would need to be deployed around metropolitan areas and military bases to complement the national border, quantify how many RDPs would be required based on traffic flows, and define RDP specifications.

Devabhaktuni Srikrishna’s publications and patents have spanned quantum computing, parallel computing, wireless data communications, and nuclear detection. He holds a BS in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly Chief Technology Officer and a Founder of Tropos Networks (2000-2007). Tropos develops and manufactures wireless mesh routers for creating Wi-Fi service across metro areas currently operating in over 500 cities worldwide.

Thomas A. Tisch is a private high tech investor with operating and venture capital experience. In his career, he served as a partner at Portola Venture Fund, an initial investor in 3Com, and Software Publishing Corp and later at MBW Management where his investments included Netrix, Stratacom and Stac Electronics. Among operating roles, he was I instrumental in Etrade pioneering Internet brokerage as Vice President of Trade*Plus as it was known then. Mr. Tisch holds a BS in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (1961), an MS EE from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Narasimha Chari is the Founder and Chief Architect of Tropos Networks where he has been responsible for developing Tropos Networks' core intellectual property, including the design and development of the company's wireless networking and routing protocols. Among other honors, Mr. Chari was recognized by MIT Technology Review magazine in 2005 as one of the Top 35 Innovators under the age of 35. He has performed research, published papers and disclosed patents in a variety of areas of mathematics, physics, wireless networking and nuclear detection. Mr. Chari holds a BS in Mathematics and Economics from the California Institute of Technology and an AM in Physics from Harvard University.