News & Announcements

Andrew Weber, head of global partnerships for Metabiota and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, has been named a Senior Fellow (non resident) at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Weber is a renowned expert on countering global threats who helped lead the U.S. government’s response to the Ebola outbreak and played a key role in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. At the Belfer Center, he will develop a biosecurity project in conjunction with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in Washington.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

"It's been a week of unrest, of massive investigation, of more bombings in Syria. I'd be silly to say 'this is how it is.' Things are changing too fast, but the universal question that  you hear today will remain the same. Not just because of what happened in Paris, but because it's a question we have been asking ourselves since 9/11: Am I safe?"

The terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, which killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds of others, stunned the international community. In the days since, there has been renewed debate over a host of issues, including the strategy to defeat ISIS, the Syrian migrant crisis, and where the terrorist group might strike next. The attacks have also intensified the diplomacy surrounding the Syrian Civil War, and reopened the debate over the proper balance between security and privacy in the Western world.

Belfer Center experts have been weighing in on these and related topics. See our guide to their thoughts and insights.

This week, Security Mom host Juliette Kayyem sat down with Matt Olsen, former Head of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, and Amy Jeffress, who worked in the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder, about why Gitmo remains open.

On this week's episode of "Security Mom," Juliette Kayyem sits down with Peter Neffenger, the new administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Eric Rosenbach, former executive director for research at the Belfer Center, was named chief of staff to Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter effective July 6, 2015. Rosenbach had served previously as deputy chief of staff and earlier as assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security, with a focus on cyber policy.

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

Juliette Kayyem spoke with former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff about what was wrong with the color-coded terror alert system, so we might better understand the bigger challenges we confront in a world of mayhem—how to understand risk, and how to talk about scary things.

Harvard Kennedy School MPP students Léa Steinacker, Julia Stern, and Olivia Zetter traveled to Washington D.C. in February to attend part of the first-ever White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Three years after the release of President Obama’s national security strategy on domestic CVE, the event brought together practitioners from local, national, and foreign governments, academia, and the private sector, to share best practices on community-based approaches. The Kennedy School students were recommended for the summit by Farah Pandith, Belfer Center senior fellow, who served previously as the first-ever special representative to Muslim communities, appointed by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.