The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Biography
Anurag Panda is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program. Panda’s research interests are understanding technological change and how public policy can help economies transition toward sustainability. He is particularly interested in research questions that will help advance the developmental goals of middle- and low-income countries. His current projects focus on manufacturing strategy for next-generation photovoltaics and firm capability-building to develop higher efficiency air-conditioners.
Panda recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, where he made a transition from being a physical scientist to a policy researcher. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he led a research program to prototype and deploy third-generation solar technology for novel energy services. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied the physics of third-generation semiconductors, that are now used in improved PVs and LEDs. He has been involved in many last-mile energy access efforts, both in India and Ghana.
Last Updated: Aug 22, 2022, 10:22am