Newsmakers

Paul Anastas, former senior associate with the Environment and Natural Resources Program, was nominated by President Obama to be assistant administrator for research and development at the Environmental Protection Agency. Anastas, known as the father of "Green Chemistry," is director of Yale's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering.

R. Nicholas Burns, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors and Harvard Kennedy School professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics, was named director of the Aspen Strategy Group. Co-chaired by Brent Scowcroft and the Belfer Center's Joseph S. Nye, the Aspen Strategy Group is a bi-partisan forum "dedicated to thoroughly exploring the critical national security and foreign policy challenges facing the nation."

Vaidyanantha Gundlupet, a research fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, received the 2009 Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the field of security studies from the American Political Science Association's International Security and Arms Control section. His dissertation was titled, "Big Sticks and Contested Carrots: Explaining International Security Institutions."

Donald Kendall, a member of the International Council and former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, sponsored the Open World Program's anniversary gala on September 29, 2009. The gala was held at the Library of Congress' historic Thomas Jefferson Building and hosted an international cadre of policy makers, activists, politicos, foreign and U.S. ambassadors, and cultural luminaries.

John P. Holdren, on leave from the Belfer Center's board of directors to serve as assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, was inducted into the Royal Society on July 10, 2009. In announcing his selection, the Royal Society hailed Holdren as "pre-eminent in the fields of science and technology policy," adding that "his contributions to our understanding of energy technology and the population-resource-environment nexus have justifiably received wide acclaim."

Laura Holgate, former staff assistant to the International Security Program, was named senior director for weapons of mass destruction terrorism and threat reduction on the National Security Council. Holgate will work with Gary Samore, former research fellow and current coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism, on the National Security Council.

Daniel Ponemon, former research fellow with the International Security Program and current deputy secretary of energy, held the first meeting of the U.S.-Russian Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group in September. The meeting was co-chaired by Sergei Kiriyenko, director general of Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation. The group was established under the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission during the July 2009 Presidential Summit.
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Samantha Power, former executive director of the Belfer Center Human Rights Initiative and current senior director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Council, was appointed by President Obama to coordinate the efforts of the many parts of the U.S. government on Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), including the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense.

Moshik Temkin, a Belfer Center faculty affiliate, was on the 2009 Cundill International Prize in History's longlist of nominated books for The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial. The prize is awarded to an author who has published a book determined to have a profound literary, social and academic impact on the subject. The ten books on the longlist were chosen from more than 130 entries.

Shirley Williams, a member of the board of directors, was appointed the United Kingdom's representative to the International Commission on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND). The ICNND is a joint initiative by the Australian and Japanese Governments aimed at reinvigorating international efforts on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. It is co-chaired by the former foreign secretaries of Australia and Japan and made up of 15 commissioners.