Nuclear Issues

Former Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a Senior Fellow, the Center announced today. Sherwood-Randall, who has served in the White House and Departments of Energy and Defense, is returning to the Center where she worked in the 1990s to help establish two pioneering projects – the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project with Graham Allison, who this month stepped down as the Center’s director, and the Preventive Defense Project with Ash Carter, the former Secretary of Defense who is the new Belfer Center director.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, former Deputy Secretary of Energy who has served in high-level positions at the White House and Pentagon, joined Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center as a non-resident Senior Fellow in July. Sherwood-Randall is returning to the Kennedy School where she previously collaborated with Ash Carter, the Belfer Center’s newly appointed director, and Graham Allison, who stepped down as Center director this month. We asked Sherwood-Randall to give us some background on her Harvard connections, why she returned, and what she hopes to accomplish as a Senior Fellow.

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

Verification is a crucial part of all arms control agreements, from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the 1980s to the recent Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz explained during a recent appearance at Harvard. And it is on verification where scientists can be decisive.

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

As part of the India and South Asia Program’s annual speaker series, Ambassador MaleehaLodhi, the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations discussed her country’s regional agenda.

Professor Meghan O'Sullivan was interviewed on November 15th, 2015 for a Wall Street Journal special section on energy, discussing the rapid transformation of the American energy sector in light of low fuel prices, new climate policies and other factors.