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.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Next year's proposed cuts in federal funding for scientific research and development could be as high as 8 percent, seriously impacting research in agriculture, energy and medicine. CISAC Postdoctoral Fellow Robert Forrest outlines how cuts would "profoundly inhibit innovation and deal an astonishing blow to American exceptionalism."
He’s been a presidential adviser, academic administrator, scholar and mentor.
But listening to those who best know Coit Blacker talk about his professional achievements is to hear people describe a close friend nearly everyone calls “Chip.”
“One of the reasons Chip has been so successful as a leader is that he is simply a good guy,” said Condoleezza Rice, who first met Blacker at Stanford in the early 1980s – long before she would become the university’s provost and later serve as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state.
“Great leaders are first and foremost good people,” Rice said.
After a decade leading Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Blacker is stepping down from the position on Aug. 31. He will be succeeded by President Emeritus Gerhard Casper.
Following a yearlong sabbatical, Blacker plans to return to campus and continue teaching about foreign policy – a topic he mastered through academic research and as President Bill Clinton’s special assistant for national security affairs and senior director of Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council.
Reading letters written by Clinton, former national security adviser Sandy Berger and Michael McFaul – the U.S. ambassador to Russia and FSI senior fellow who studied closely with Blacker – Rice capped a lineup of colleagues, students and donors who honored the departing director during a farewell reception held June 14 at the Cantor Arts Center.
“Under your directorship, the institute has enhanced its status as one of the globe’s most prominent and influential centers for the study of international relations,” Clinton wrote. “The institute’s research is helping us move toward a more stable, sustainable and equitable world in this age of interdependence. In addition to your devotion to Stanford, I will always be grateful for your outstanding work at the National Security Council during my presidency.”
Nearly 20 years before joining the Clinton administration in 1995, Blacker arrived at Stanford as a postdoctoral fellow in the university's Arms Control and Disarmament Program. He lectured and taught through the 1980s, becoming a popular professor known for working closely with his students.
“I saw in him a mentor who not only excelled in his field, but did so with intellectual fortitude, integrity, and a deep-seeded sense of service to which I only hoped I could aspire,” said Theo Milonopoulos, a former student of Blacker’s who is now a Fulbright Scholar at King’s College London.
In 1991, Blacker became a senior fellow at the Institute for International Studies – the precursor to FSI. He was appointed as the institute’s deputy director in 1998, and took over as director five years later.
Under Blacker’s tenure, FSI expanded its number of research centers from four to seven, and grew its faculty from 21 to 32 professors. The institute’s endowment is nearly $200 million, up from $122 million in 2002.
“FSI has really become the jewel in the crown of Stanford’s interdisciplinary institutes under Chip’s leadership,” said Ann Arvin, Stanford’s dean of research. “I hesitate to say how many times I have advised others to just ask Chip how they do it at FSI – whatever `it’ may be.”
Continuing to move between the academic and political worlds, Blacker advised Vice President Al Gore on foreign policy issues during the 2000 presidential race.
Back at Stanford a year later, he was awarded the Laurence and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize for undergraduate teaching, and was named the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education in 2002.
Even surrounded by faculty at Stanford, Blacker was never far from policymakers in Washington and working abroad. In a letter read by Rice, McFaul wrote directly to his old teacher.
“You have been and remain one of my most important mentors,” McFaul wrote. “I have not made a single decision in my professional career without first seeking your advice.”
“Chip has had a distinguished career – not just as a scholar, not just as a teacher – but of course as a policymaker,” Rice said. “It is that wonderful sensibility for what policymakers need and listen to that helps him to translate Stanford and its great research for the policy world.”
In 2005, Blacker was instrumental in securing a $50 million naming gift from Brad Freeman and Ronald Spogli, partners in a private equity investment firm.
“We believed very much in the guiding principal of interdisciplinary research which is at the core of FSI today,” said Spogli, a former U.S. ambassador to Italy and San Marino. “But the most important reason that we made our gift is Chip Blacker. We believed in Chip as the leader who would be able to take FSI to a new and greater level.”
Much of Blacker’s success has revolved around his development and support of FSI’s faculty. Stephen Krasner, FSI’s deputy director who has worked with Blacker for about 20 years, praised his friend and colleague for fostering an environment where researchers are eager to collaborate and share ideas.
“From the outside – when Chip does these things – they all look flawless, effortless, perfectly organized, well structured,” Krasner said. “From the inside, you can see how astute, wise and generous Chip has been in developing FSI and its faculty and activities.”
Former CISAC fellow Dara Cohen, currently an assistant professor at Harvard University, wrote a co-authored blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations, discussing how to prevent sexual violence through research and policymaking. They dispel misconceptions about sexual violence in conflict areas and encourage policymakers to listen to those affected by wartime rape.
Abstract
The human-microbial ecosystem plays a variety of important roles in human health and disease. Each person can be viewed as an island-like “patch” of habitat occupied by microbial assemblages formed by the fundamental processes of community ecology: dispersal, local diversification, environmental selection, and ecological drift. Community assembly theory, and metacommunity theory in particular, provides a framework for understanding the ecological dynamics of the human microbiome, such as compositional variability within and between hosts. We explore three core scenarios of human microbiome assembly: development in infants, representing assembly in previously unoccupied habitats; recovery from antibiotics, representing assembly after disturbance; and invasion by pathogens, representing assembly in the context of invasive species. Judicious application of ecological theory may lead to improved strategies for restoring and maintaining the microbiota and the crucial health-associated ecosystem services that it provides.
Stanford seniors Stephen Craig and Clay Ramel have been awarded The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and The William J. Perry Prize, respectively, for their theses on German's foreign policy and the global politics of oil.
Both recipients are students of the CISAC's Undergraduate Honors Program in International Security Studies and will graduate next week.
Craig, a political science major, wrote "Tamed Tiger or Restless Beast? German Foreign Policy in the Post-Unification Period."
Ramel, a science, technology, and society major, wrote “Reconsidering the Roots of Crude Coercion: a Policymaking Analysis of `the Oil Weapon.'”
The Firestone Medal recognizes the top 10 percent of all honors theses in social science, science, and engineering. The Perry Prize is awarded to a student for excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.
Almost every company is asking the question of survivability – how to balance business needs and growth, while meeting regulatory compliance and mitigating security risks? This question is facing organizations of all sizes, and for some the answer is changing the mission and scope of their IT security initiatives. In this session, Malcolm will discuss Intel’s approach to managing risk with its new “Protect to Enable” information security strategy.
Malcolm Harkins is vice president of the Information Technology Group and chief information security officer (CISO) and general manager of Information Risk and Security. The group is responsible for managing the risk, controls, privacy, security and other related compliance activities for all of Intel Corporation's information assets.
Before becoming Intel's first CISO, Harkins held roles in Finance, Procurement and Operations. He has managed efforts encompassing IT benchmarking and Sarbanes Oxley systems compliance. Joining Intel in 1992, Harkins previously held positions as the profit and loss manager for the Flash Products Group; general manager of Enterprise Capabilities, responsible for the delivery and support of Intel's finance and HR systems; and in an Intel business venture focusing on e-commerce hosting. Harkins previously taught at the CIO institute at the UCLA Anderson School of Business and was an adjunct faculty member at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. He received the 'Excellence in the Field of Security' award from the RSA conference as well as an Intel Achievement Award. Harkins received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California at Irvine and an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of California at Davis.
CISAC Conference Room
Dramatic improvements and cost reductions in renewable energy technologies have occurred over the past decade and even greater improvements are expected in the years to come. In addition, plentiful unconventional gas resources in North America and potentially broadly around the world provide prospects for a long-term lower carbon-emitting fossil fuel for electricity production and other uses. This optimistic outlook is in stark contrast to the energy situation in developing countries. Even today, several billion people lack access to electricity and clean cooking fuels. Additionally, industries in these developing countries--which are crucial for raising people from poverty, suffer from unreliable electricity and fuel supplies, which dramatically lowers productivity. This talk will first discuss the promising developments in advanced energy technologies and then explore the prospects, challenges and options for addressing energy access in the developing countries.
About the speaker: Sally M. Benson was appointed GCEP Director in January 2009 after holding the Executive Director post since March 2007. A Professor (Research) in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering (ERE) in the School of Earth Sciences, Benson has been a member of Stanford’s faculty since 2007. Her research group in ERE investigates fundamental characteristics of carbon dioxide storage in geologic formations as a means of climate change mitigation. She teaches courses on carbon dioxide capture and storage and greenhouse gas mitigation technologies.
Prior to joining GCEP, Benson worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), serving in a number of capacities, including Division Director for Earth Sciences, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences, and Deputy Director for Operations. Benson graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in geology. She completed her graduate education in 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley, after receiving master’s and doctoral degrees, both in materials science and mineral engineering.
CISAC Conference Room
This presentation provided a history of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beginning with the discovery of nuclear fission continuing through the development of the bomb and the cold war and up to the present time. The current cases of Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were reviewed.
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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.
For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.
