News & Announcements

Heather Williams, a nuclear expert at King’s College London and visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it was “totally ambiguous” but in keeping with a leader who has a history of being a “nuclear bully”. “It is classic Putin, creating ambiguity and uncertainty,” Williams said. “Putin is so good at that because he knows that it keeps people on edge.”

Christopher (Chris) Krebs, former Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has been named a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Homeland Security Project and the Cyber Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

A letter signed by leading scientists—including the Belfer Center's Aditi Verma—and Catholic leaders urges the Biden administration to adopt several nuclear policies, including a declaration that the US will never use nuclear weapons first, work with Russia and then with other nations to verifiably reduce nuclear arsenals, and to affirm the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as complementary to existing agreements, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

More than 70 nuclear nonproliferation specialists, including Matthew Bunn, signed a statement in support of U.S. reentry into the Iran Nuclear Deal.

The Belfer Center's Intelligence Project and Cyber Project to host conference exploring the state of diversity in the intelligence and national security communities on September 24th and September 25th, 2020. 

The International Security Program (ISP) is still accepting applications for 2020–2021.  ISP is a multidisciplinary research group that develops and trains new talent in security studies by hosting pre- and postdoctoral research fellows. 

The Arctic Transformation and Resilience Study Group, led by Arctic Initiative Senior Fellow Joel Clement, will give students the opportunity to learn about and work on issues of Arctic resilience. Working together to deliver a compilation and brief analysis of existing policies that support or inhibit resilience in the Arctic, students will have the opportunity to meet with top Arctic scientists, policymakers, indigenous knowledge-holders, and finance experts, while developing a report that will be delivered to the Secretariat of the Arctic Council Sustainable Development Working Group.

This study group will be held on Tuesdays, from 6pm–7:30pm, beginning Oct 29, and including Nov 5, 12, 19, and 26. For more information or to sign-up, please contact brittany_janis@hks.harvard.edu. Space is limited; please register by October 21.

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School has named Lauren Zabierek, Maria Barsallo Lynch, and Julia Voo to head three of the Center’s growing cyber-related projects. They will run the Center’s Cyber Project, Defending Digital Democracy Project, and China Cyber Policy Initiative, respectively.

Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elemendorf announced this week that Juliette Kayyem has been promoted to Senior Lecturer.

Dr. Matthew S. Meselson, Harvard University's Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and co-Director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons, received the $50,000 Future of Life Award at a ceremony at the University of Boulder's Conference on World Affairs on April 9, 2019.  The award honors Meselson's leading role in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), an international treaty that not only affirmed the existing ban on the use of biological weapons, but also banned the production, stockpiling, and offensive research into biological weapons. The BWC also provides for a verification system.