FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.
FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.
FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.
About the Topic: Analysis of environmental samples collected for nuclear forensics purposes typically involves determination of isotopic composition, which can sometimes (but not always) reveal information about nuclear events or processes that resulted in the anthropogenic radioactivity. This information is referred to as the “isotopic signature”. Sequential extractions have been used for many years to determine chemical forms of contaminants for environmental regulatory purposes and clean-up decisions, and they can reveal “chemical signatures” about the events or processes that resulted in contamination. Coupling sequential extractions with isotopic determinations in nuclear forensics analyses provides an opportunity to link isotopic and chemical signatures, which can improve confidence in identifying the relevant nuclear event or process. This approach shows promise, particularly when coupled with nuclear fuel cycle process knowledge. Examples involving contaminated nuclear sites in the US and Russia will be discussed.
About the Speaker: Sue B. Clark is the regents distinguished professor of chemistry with tenure at Washington State University. She also holds an appointment to the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama. Her current research areas include the environmental chemistry of plutonium and other actinides, chemistry of radioactive waste systems, and actinide separations. She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in these areas.
Her research support includes grants and contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration. Prof. Clark is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and is the 2012 recipient of the ACS’s Olin-Garvan Medal. Prof. Clark is an editor for the journal Radiochimica Acta. Professor Clark holds a BS degree in Chemistry from Lander College (Greenwood, SC) and MS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL).
CISAC Conference Room
Sue B. Clark
Professor and Chair, Chemistry Department, Washington State University
Speaker
About the Topic: Air, sea, land, and space are the traditional domains of military operations. Now, as the Information Age unfolds, cyberspace has become the fifth domain. The relative newness of cyberspace and the interdependencies between it and the preexisting domains pose many challenges, both in terms of the wise integration of cyber into ongoing operations and the creation of personnel with the right combination of technical and non-technical knowledge to apply activities on computers and networks in ways consistent with high-level policy. Cyber operations include both the defense of networks and computers, but also actions to achieve specific effects on adversaries. These effects may extend to the physical world, or may be circumscribed entirely to cyber systems. Through examples and observations, this unclassified talk will illustrate the complexity of our quest to use cyber space.
About the Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Irvine is the chair of the Cyber Academic Group and director of the Center for Information Systems Security Studies and Research (CISR) at the Naval Postgraduate School where she is a professor of computer science. Her research centers on the design and construction of secure high assurance systems and multilevel security, and now cyber systems and operations. She is an author on over 160 papers and reports and has supervised the research of over 140 Masters and PhD students. Dr. Irvine is a recipient of the Naval Information Assurance Award and the William Hugh Murray Founder’s Award from the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education. She is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a lifetime member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Golden Core Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). From 2005 through 2009, she served as Vice- Chair and subsequently as Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Security and Privacy.
CISAC Conference Room
Cynthia Irvine
Chair, Naval Postgraduate School Cyber Academic Group; Professor of Computer Science and Director, Center for Information Systems Security Studies and Research (CISR), Naval Postgraduate School
Speaker
More than 450 nuclear tests were carried out by the Soviet Union in the isolated steppes of eastern Kazakhstan from 1949 to 1989. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russians pulled out and left the Kazakhs to their own devices – literally. Enough fissile material for a dozen or more nuclear weapons was left behind in mountain tunnels and bore holes, virtually unguarded and vulnerable to scavengers, rogue states or potential terrorists.
In a remarkable, yet closely held feat of collaboration between the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan, engineers and nuclear scientists from the three countries spent 15 years and $150 million to secure many of the tunnels and test areas at the sprawling Semipalatinsk Test Site. Siegfried S. Hecker, a senior fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, launched the project while director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He used his personal ties with Russian scientists to prod them into working with the Americans and Kazakhs after a visit to the test site in 1998 left him stunned by the lack of security and the presence of scavengers.
It was one of the greatest nuclear nonproliferation stories never told, until the White House and Pentagon revealed some details in 2012, which David Hoffman and Eben Harrell of Harvard’s Belfer Center made public over the weekend in an in-depth report: Plutonium Mountain. In October 2012, officials from Kazakhstan, Russia and the United States dedicated a monument that simply reads: The world has become safer.
Hecker – who teaches the popular Stanford class, “Technology and National Security” with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry – answers questions about the extraordinary Semipalatinsk mission. He also talks about next steps to secure the site.
Q: Why were you concerned about plutonium or highly enriched uranium scattered around the former Soviet test site? Did you see it as more than just an environmental and health problem?
Hecker: The atmospheric nuclear explosions resulted in environmental contamination because everything is vaporized in such an explosion. However, I was familiar with additional experiments we Americans performed at our Nevada Test Site and, in fact, some in bore holes at Los Alamos which left these materials much more intact and easily attainable, thus presenting proliferation or terrorism concerns.
Q: Why did you suspect the Soviets of conducting similar tests?
Hecker: We knew the Soviets had at least as robust a nuclear test and experimentation program as we had. If Nevada became an independent country tomorrow, the way the Soviet site now belongs to Kazakhstan, I would be very concerned. Besides, we had kept a close eye on what was going on at Semipalatinsk during the Cold War. It turned out that we had good reason to be concerned.
Q: You were director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Why did you get personally involved in this project?
Hecker: The great thing about being at Los Alamos was that you have so many bright people around you who kept track of everything going on in the security world. It was our scientists who had been tracking the Soviets for decades who brought these issues to my attention. These problems involved more than science; they involved politics and diplomacy, and with those they needed help. They also needed someone who understood the problem and could get action in Washington.
Q: Was this the first time you got involved with the Russian nuclear complex?
Hecker: No, on Aug. 17, 1988, 25 years ago, I was sitting in the Nevada Test Site control room for the detonation of one of our nuclear devices. What was remarkable is that across from me was Viktor Mikhailov, leader of a Soviet scientific delegation and later minister of atomic energy. We were conducting an experiment to verify that the other side could adequately monitor the size of nuclear explosions. It was part of the Reagan-Gorbachev set of initiatives to end the Cold War and grew out of technical discussions on the sideline of meetings to negotiate verification measures for the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
Q: How did this experience play a role in the Semipalatinsk project?
Hecker: We worked together with the Russian nuclear weapons scientists for the first time in Nevada and in a reciprocal nuclear test at Semipalatinsk on Sept. 14, 1988. These events began the essential process of building the personal trust necessary to work side by side to tackle problems like those at Semipalatinsk.
Q: You visited the Russian nuclear weapons labs in early 1992, right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Did they tell you about the problems at Semipalatinsk then?
Hecker: No. They had fond memories of the nuclear testing days at Semipalatinsk. They thought it was tragic that Russia lost such an important asset to the now-independent country of Kazakhstan. They believed the real estate and its problems now belonged to Kazakhstan. The Russian government did not want to be stuck with a bill to clean up the test site and believed the highly publicized environmental issues were greatly overblown.
Q: But surely they must have known that there was a proliferation risk with all the plutonium and highly enriched uranium that was left behind from their tests?
Hecker: In the 1990s, the Russian nuclear weapons labs had bigger problems. They were worried about survival and how to pay their people. One has to put the Semipalatinsk issue in perspective. During one of my many visits to the Russian labs the scientists told me that they had not been paid for nearly six months. They also did not think that someone would look for nuclear materials in such a desolate place.
Q: How did you confirm your suspicions that the problems at Semipalatinsk were more than an environmental problem?
Hecker: We got some discomforting reports from Kazakh scientists that prompted us to investigate this issue further.
Q: How did you get involved with them?
Hecker: The U.S. government began a project in the early 1990s with the Kazakhs to close the testing tunnels and eliminate the nuclear testing infrastructure at Semipalatinsk under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. That was the first major U.S.-Kazakh effort. We also involved the Kazakhs in an extension of programs we developed with the Russians on nuclear materials security. That brought Los Alamos and other Department of Energy laboratory scientists to the nuclear reactor on the Caspian Sea; to one in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital at that time; and to research reactors at the test site.
Q: Did Kazakh scientists who visited Los Alamos and confirm your worst fears?
Hecker: As part of the Nunn-Lugar program, the U.S. established what was called an International Science and Technology Center program with the Kazakhs to help scientists make the post-Cold War transition to civilian work. That program brought Kazakh scientists to work with my colleagues at Los Alamos. It was a January 1998 visit by Kairat Kadyrzhanov, director of the Kazakh Institute of Nuclear Physics, which confirmed my fears. He told me not only about finding radioactive hot spots on the test site, but also about not being able to control the metal scavengers digging up copper cables to sell. And he invited me to Semipalatinsk.
Q. What did you find during your April 1998 visit to Semipalatinsk?
Hecker: I was alarmed to find unmanned guard posts and virtually no security at the site. My Los Alamos colleagues and I became convinced that Semipalatinsk was not only a serious proliferation problem, but also an urgent one. The copper cable thieves were not nomads on camelback, but instead they employed industrial excavation machinery and left kilometers of deep trenches digging out everything they could sell. We were concerned that some of that copper cabling could lead to plutonium residues.
Rachel Maddow, on Hecker's work (please bear with us on the initial ad):
Q: How did you convince Washington and Moscow that we had a problem that needed to be addressed on a trilateral basis?
Hecker: Washington was easy. We briefed then-DOE Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller and Under Secretary Ernie Moniz. They were very supportive of our efforts. We also had a great advocate for our effort in Andy Weber in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Moscow was more difficult. The Ministry of Atomic Energy was reluctant to get involved.
Q: What persuaded them to take action?
Hecker: I traveled to Sarov, the Russian Los Alamos, and showed director Rady Ilkaev the photos I had taken at Semipalatinsk. I asked if he was sure that they didn’t leave anything of concern behind. He talked to Ministry of Atomic Energy officials that night and sent the scientists who conducted some of the most important experiments at the site to see me the next morning. The Russian scientists knew this was important and they convinced Moscow that we should work together to mitigate the risks at the test site.
Q: Why did you need the Russians if you had good relations with the Kazakh nuclear establishment and the test site was now under their jurisdiction?
Hecker: Semipalatinsk is huge, almost the size of New Jersey and five times as big as the Nevada Test Site, so we wouldn’t know all the places to look. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Besides, we would have little idea of how dangerous it was to dig around without knowing what we should expect to find. Only the Russians knew where to look and what to look for.
Q: Did the Russians scientist cooperate?
Hecker: The Russian scientists were terrific. Without their cooperation, none of this could have been done. Director Ilkaev cleared the way with Moscow. The two key scientists from Sarov, Dr. Yuri M. Styazhkin and Dr. Viktor S. Stepanyuk, felt it was their moral duty to help solve the problems they left behind. They spent the better part of the next 15 years working on this problem. Unfortunately, Dr. Styazhkin passed away and was not able to celebrate with us when we had a small gathering of scientists at the site last September, just before the official unveiling of the monument in October.
Q: What about the American side?
Hecker: The key technical person was my Los Alamos colleague, Dr. Philip Hemberger. He took over the daily scientific leadership and provided the trusted interface with the Russian scientists. He also spent a better part of the next decade, and his career, working on this problem. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) managed the project with oversight from Andy Weber in the Pentagon.
Q. What was physically done to secure the sites?
Hecker: One site required an enormous sarcophagus, at another huge metal vessels were filled with concrete and special materials, and some of the tunnels were filled with concrete. The entire region in question at the test site was equipped with video cameras, seismic sensors and drones feeding information back to a sophisticated control room.
Q: Why did the operation take so long?
Hecker: The test site is huge. The Soviets conducted nuclear tests and other experiments there for 40 years. It involved their two weapons laboratories and multiple defense agencies. They were in a hurry, especially in the early years, and likely did not keep complete records. And, some of the key people were no longer alive. There were three countries involved and a lot of bureaucracy and diplomatic tussles, but the personal trust between the scientists helped to overcome the logjams.
Q: Was the length of time not related to lack of cooperation from the Russian side since they were reluctant to get involved in the first place?
Hecker: Yes, there was reluctance, but some of it was quite justified. For example, they were concerned that if we start digging around in some of the suspected areas, but then pull out U.S. support, we would leave the area more dangerous than it was before because now we had shown the scavengers where to look. They wanted to move step by step – identify an area, take samples and analyze the risk, then remediate if necessary. Trust was built along the way and they continued to roll out one problem area after another.
The trust and personal relationships developed among the scientists in all three countries were crucial."
Q: Who paid for all of this?
Hecker: The Americans paid the entire bill. The project was managed by professionals from DTRA supported by Nunn-Lugar funds appropriated by the U.S. Congress.
Q: But why only American money?
Hecker: The Russians were in no position to pay at the beginning of the project, as 1998 was a year of financial meltdown for the Russian economy. If we waited for them to pay, the copper cable thieves may have beat us to the nuclear materials. Likewise, the Kazakhs did not have the financial means and they believed they were not responsible for creating the problem. On the other hand, the U.S. initiated the Nunn-Lugar program to reduce the nuclear risks we face from the proliferation of nuclear weapons or materials resulting from the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Washington, spanning three presidential administrations, was prepared and willing to pay. It was money well spent.
Hecker was astonished to find trenches where scavengers had dug up copper cables used in communications with the Semipalatinsk Test Site control room. Photo Credit: Siegfried Hecker
Q: Is the problem fully resolved now?
Hecker: No, it likely will never be. As the Russian scientist, Viktor Stepanyuk, wrote in one of his papers about the mission: “The `definitive reduction’ of proliferation risks … on the territory of the former STS (Semipalatinsk Test Site) can be realized only though comprehensive set of activities comprising physical protection, security, information and legal protection.” I believe it will require the attention of all three countries for a long time to come. During my visit to Semipalatinsk last September and in subsequent discussions, we agreed to hold a trilateral technical workshop early next year on the long-term future of Semipalatinsk.
Q: What were the secrets to success behind the Semipalatinsk Project?
Hecker: The Semipalatinsk project serves as a remarkable example of how scientists can work together and how their efforts should be reinforced by governments to address serious proliferation problems. The trust and personal relationships developed among the scientists in all three countries were crucial. American Nunn-Lugar funds were crucial and the effective project management by DTRA was essential as the project expanded.
Q: Do you see cooperation with the Russians as particularly important?
Hecker: Yes. The U.S. and Russia have special responsibilities to lead the world’s efforts in nuclear safety and security. They own the bulk of the world’s nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear facilities. The others pale in comparison. Semipalatinsk was only one example of how Russian and U.S. scientists cooperated to make the world safer. Russian and American scientists believe strongly that we have much more work to do. But the strained relations between Moscow and Washington are impeding our efforts. I hope the Semipalatinsk story reminds them that nuclear cooperation is in the interests of both sides.
Q: Finally, with success at Semipalatinsk, what keeps you awake at night now?
Hecker: Most certainly, the nuclear hotspots around the world, namely, North Korea; Iran and Israel in the Middle East; and Pakistan and India in South Asia. Of equal concern, however, is getting all countries to take nuclear safety and security seriously. They require constant vigilance – one is never done. There are no simple technical fixes. International cooperation at all levels is required to ensure that world-class nuclear safety and security is practiced at all nuclear sites around the globe
American, Russian and Kazakh scientists at the so-called Atomic Lake, the crater created by a nuclear test fired on Jan. 15, 1965. Photo Credit: CISAC
Hero Image
An abandoned guard post at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in April 1998. Hecker used this photo to convince his Russian colleagues that they needed to cooperate with the Americans and Kazakhs to secure the site.
David A. Relman, M.D., is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California. He is also co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Dr. Relman’s primary research focus is the human indigenous microbiota (microbiome), and in particular, the nature and mechanisms of variation in patterns of microbial diversity and function within the human body, and the basis of microbial community resilience. His work was some of the first to employ modern molecular methods in the study of the microbiome, and provided the first in-depth sequence-based analyses of microbial community structure in humans. During the past few decades, his research has included pathogen discovery and the development of new strategies for identifying previously-unrecognized microbial agents of disease. A resulting publication was cited by the American Society for Microbiology as one of the 50 most important papers in microbiology of the twentieth century. He has also served as an advisor to a number of agencies and departments within the U.S. Government on matters pertaining to host-microbe interactions, emerging infectious diseases, and biosecurity. He co-chaired a widely-cited 2006 study by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) on “Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences”, and served as vice-chair of a 2011 National Academies study of the science underlying the FBI investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings. He currently serves as a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (2005-), a member of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law at the National Academy of Science (2012-15), a member of the Science, Technology & Engineering Advisory Panel for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2012-), as Chair of the Forum on Microbial Threats at the Institute of Medicine (NAS) (2007-), and as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2012-2013).
Dr. Relman received an S.B. (Biology) from MIT (1977), M.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Medical School (1982), completed his clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, served as a postdoctoral fellow in microbiology at Stanford University, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1994. He received an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2006, was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2003 and the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2010, and was elected a Member of the Institute of Medicine in 2011.
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E209
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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relman@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor
Professor of Medicine
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
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MD
David A. Relman, M.D., is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California. He is also Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford, and served as science co-director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford from 2013-2017. He is currently director of a new Biosecurity Initiative at FSI.
Relman was an early pioneer in the modern study of the human indigenous microbiota. Most recently, his work has focused on human microbial community assembly, and community stability and resilience in the face of disturbance. Ecological theory and predictions are tested in clinical studies with multiple approaches for characterizing the human microbiome. Previous work included the development of molecular methods for identifying novel microbial pathogens, and the subsequent identification of several historically important microbial disease agents. One of his papers was selected as “one of the 50 most important publications of the past century” by the American Society for Microbiology.
Dr. Relman received an S.B. (Biology) from MIT, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1994. He served as vice-chair of the NAS Committee that reviewed the science performed as part of the FBI investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters, as a member of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity, and as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is currently a member of the Intelligence Community Studies Board and the Committee on Science, Technology and the Law, both at the National Academies of Science. He has received an NIH Pioneer Award, an NIH Transformative Research Award, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.
David Relman
Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor, Departments of Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford School of Medicine; CISAC Co-Director; FSI Senior Fellow; Stanford Health Policy Affiliate
Speaker
Overview (From http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/arguments-count): In a rapidly changing world, we rely upon experts to assess the promise and risks of new technology. But how do these experts make sense of a highly uncertain future? In Arguments that Count, Rebecca Slayton offers an important new perspective. Drawing on new historical documents and interviews as well as perspectives in science and technology studies, she provides an original account of how scientists came to terms with the unprecedented threat of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). She compares how two different professional communities—physicists and computer scientists—constructed arguments about the risks of missile defense, and how these arguments changed over time. Slayton shows that our understanding of technological risks is shaped by disciplinary repertoires—the codified knowledge and mathematical rules that experts use to frame new challenges. And, significantly, a new repertoire can bring long-neglected risks into clear view.
In the 1950s, scientists recognized that high-speed computers would be needed to cope with the unprecedented speed of ICBMs. But the nation’s elite science advisors had no way to analyze the risks of computers so used physics to assess what they could: radar and missile performance. Only decades later, after establishing computing as a science, were advisors able to analyze authoritatively the risks associated with complex software—most notably, the risk of a catastrophic failure. As we continue to confront new threats, including that of cyber attack, Slayton offers valuable insight into how different kinds of expertise can limit or expand our capacity to address novel technological risks.
This paper reflects on the credibility of nuclear risk assessment in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. In democratic states, policymaking around nuclear energy has long been premised on an understanding that experts can objectively and accurately calculate the probability of catastrophic accidents. Yet the Fukushima disaster lends credence to the substantial body of social science research that suggests such calculations are fundamentally unworkable. Nevertheless, the credibility of these assessments appears to have survived the disaster, just as it has resisted the evidence of previous nuclear accidents. This paper looks at why. It argues that public narratives of the Fukushima disaster invariably frame it in ways that allow risk-assessment experts to “disown” it. It concludes that although these narratives are both rhetorically compelling and highly consequential to the governance of nuclear power, they are not entirely credible.
ABOUT THE TOPIC: Social scientists have been working hard to understand the circumstances and strategies that improve the chances of favorable human rights outcomes. Their findings are consistent with the view that the long-term prospects for human rights are good. Despite this, the activities of the human rights movement seem only marginally related to the forces producing rights improvements, and in some circumstances may even be counterproductive.
Dr. Snyder will also briefly reflect on his work over the years, including his 2012 book of collected essays, Power and Progress in International Relations.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books include Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition (Routledge 2012); Religion and International Relations Theory (Columbia 2011); Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (MIT Press, 2005), co-authored with Edward D. Mansfield; From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (Norton 2000); Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell 1991); and Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, co-editor with Barbara Walter (Columbia 1999). His articles on such topics as democratization and war, imperial overstretch, war crimes tribunals versus amnesties as strategies for preventing atrocities, and international relations theory after September 11 have appeared in The American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics. His commentaries on current public issues such as the promotion of democracy abroad have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and on National Public Radio. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Snyder received a B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1973, the Certificate of Columbia’s Russian Institute in 1978, and a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia in 1981.
CISAC Conference Room
Jack Snyder
Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations
Speaker
the Department of Political Science, Columbia University
One of the critical challenges in medical diagnosis and therapy using nanotechnology is the assembly of multiple components in a multifunctional delivery system. This includes functionalities that can be structurally and chemically tailored in a nanocarrier for multi-modality imaging, cell targeting, drug storage, and controlled drug release. Development of these complex systems primarily utilizes existing basic nanosystems, such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, iron oxides, silica, quantum dots, and polymeric nanomaterials. Extensive attempts have been made to design, synthesize, and assemble some of these major components described above, for diagnostic and therapeutic delivery systems. Most of the approaches center on surface functionalization with drugs, biotechnology-derived molecules, including DNA, RNA, peptides, and antibodies, and imaging agents such as quantum dots. One of the major limitations of this approach is the single surface structure of the nanosystem. To date, nanoparticles represent the most widely used carrier system for multifunctional drug delivery applications. These structures normally assume a symmetrical, spherical or tubular geometry with limited surface available for attachment of multiple components. Frequently, multifunctional conjugates on a single carrier interact with each other leading to undesired adverse effects. The design and assembly of a symmetrical, single surface carrier is further complicated by unfavorable structural and chemical arrangements of these functional components. It is, therefore, critical to develop multi-surface nanostructures for assembly of a variety of components using a clinically acceptable drug delivery platform that can best utilize the intrinsic properties of the nanomaterials.
Rod Ewing, one of the nation’s leading experts on nuclear materials, has been named the inaugural Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Ewing has written extensively on issues related to nuclear waste management and is Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. He will have a joint appointment as Professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences in the School of Earth Sciences and as a Senior Fellow at CISAC. He will begin his new position at Stanford in January.
“Given the very long and distinguished history of the Stanton Foundation’s involvement in issues of nuclear security, this appointment provides me with a unique opportunity to blend science with security policy,” Ewing said.
The endowed chair was recently established with a $5 million gift to CISAC from the Stanton Foundation to aid the center in its longstanding mission to build a safer world through rigorous policy research in nuclear security.
Former CBS president Frank Stanton established the foundation, which also funds CISAC’s Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowships for pre- and post-doctoral students and junior faculty who are studying policy-relevant issues related to nuclear security.
Ewing, currently the Edward H. Kraus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan, will conduct research on nuclear security and energy and related issues relevant to international arms control policy when he arrives at Stanford.
He will teach a course at CISAC related to nuclear security issues. In his research at Stanford’s School of Earth Sciences, Ewing will focus on the response of materials to extreme environments and the demand for strategic minerals for use in the development of sustainable energy technologies.
“I am particularly interested in understanding the connections between nuclear energy, its environmental impact and proliferation of nuclear weapons,” he said “This appointment gives me the freedom to pursue teaching and research in this area across disciplinary boundaries.”
Tino Cuéllar, CISAC’s co-director and next director of its parent organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, said Ewing’s appointment as the inaugural Stanton chair would help CISAC and FSI remain at the forefront of global efforts to understand nuclear energy and its enormous consequences to civilization.
“How societies throughout the world handle nuclear security challenges will have a profound impact on our future, and problems involving the management and security of nuclear waste will in turn greatly affect nuclear security” Cuéllar said.
Ewing’s appointment continues a tradition at CISAC of blending faculty in the sciences and social sciences. The center’s co-founders believed political science and the natural sciences are essential components of global security.
Stanton himself became actively engaged in international security issues in 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to a committee to develop the first comprehensive plan for the nation’s survival following a nuclear attack. His connection to Stanford began as a founding member and chair of Stanford’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences in 1953 and a university trustee from 1953 to 1971.
FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
