Dr. Gilles Kepel is a professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris and a research director for CNRS Paris. A prominent French scholar and analyst of the Islamic and Arab world, he is the author of several books and articles: Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam; The Revenge of God; Muslim Extremism in Egypt; Allah in the West and his most recent book The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West.

Dr. Kepel is fluent in French, English, Arabic, and Italian. He holds doctorate degrees from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris in political science and sociology

Dr. Lee currently holds the Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Endowed Chair in Economics and is a professor in the Department of Demography at University of California - Berkeley (Berkeley). He has taught courses in economic demography, population theory, population and economic development, demographic forecasting, population aging, indirect estimation, and research design, as well as a number of pro-seminars.

Professor Lee is also the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at Berkeley, funded by the National Institute of Aging. His current research includes including modeling and forecasting demographic time series, the evolutionary theory of life histories, population aging, Social Security, and intergenerational transfers.

He has received several honors, including Presidency of the Population Association of America, the Mindel C. Sheps Award for research in mathematical demography, the PAA Irene B. Taeuber Award for outstanding contributions in the field of demography. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding member of the British Academy. He has chaired the population and social science study section for NIH and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Population, and served on the National Advisory Committee on Aging (NIA Council).

Professor Lee holds an MA in demography from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

The US military is very dependent on satellites. The existing satellite architecture used has single point failures to existing recognized threats. A concept that could provide a significant part of the solution of how the US as well as other states can overcome such vulnerabilities is discussed. The prescription centers on a new satellite architecture --the 'Multi-tiered Microsatellite Constellation Architecture' (MMCA) -- which reduces risks to space assets by increasing system redundancy, modularity and dispersion through the use of microsatellite constellations in several orbital tiers. An example constellation design is given for each of the five major contemporary military space uses -- early warning, reconnaissance, signals intelligence, military communications and navigation. The scheme is placed in the context of other complimentary elements that are likely to be necessary to enable security of space assets, in particular: protection of space systems; responsive space access; terrestrial alternatives; space surveillance; treaties; and verification means thereof. Since the Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test, the response of the US military in part has been to re-double efforts to develop Operationally Responsive Space (ORS). Whilst ORS is a key ingredient, it must be complemented by a more secure satellite architecture. In addition to dealing with satellite vulnerabilities, the talk will discuss issues relating to space-based weapons and their effectiveness.

William Marshall is based in the Small Spacecraft Office at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Oxford, U.K., where his thesis centred on an experimental proposal to create macroscopic mass quantum superposition states. He conducted two years of his research at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He holds a degree in Physics with Space Science and Technology (MPhys) from the University of Leicester, UK. He has held placements at the European Space Agency, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) in London. Will's work at NASA centers on mission planning, in particular trajectory analysis, and spacecraft testing for a variety of microsatellite missions, focusing on lunar orbiters and landers. He is working on a project on the topic of space traffic management. Will serves on the Governance Group of the Space Security Index research project and also holds positions of non-resident fellow at both the Space Policy Institute (SPI) of the George Washington University and the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. In these capacities, Will has published on strategic benefits and costs of the deployment of space weapons and more broadly the increasingly important role that space is playing in global security issues. Will is the Global co-Chair of the Space Generation Advisory Council to the United Nations Programme on Space Applications (SGAC), which represents the views of students and young professionals interested in space to the UN and space agencies around the world.

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones is the well-known scholar of U.S. intelligence agencies and the author of numerous books, among them The CIA and American Democracy; Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence; Changing Differences: Women and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy; and Peace Now! American Society and the Ending of the Vietnam War. His most recent book, The FBI: A History (Yale University Press, September 2007), examines the bureau's history from a European perspective and in the context of American history, including the prism of race.

Jeffreys-Jones, a professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh, received his BA from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Other appointments have included a fellowship at the Charles Warren Center for the Study of American History, Harvard University; stipendiary, JFK Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Berlin; and Canadian Commonwealth Fellow and Visiting Professor, University of Toronto.

Maite Zubiaurre is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and has taught Spanish literature at a variety of distinguished institutions including Columbia University, the University of Texas, Austin, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the University of Southern California, among others. Dr. Zubiaurre's research interests include twentieth-century Peninsular literature; European and Latin American Realism; comparative literature; gender studies; urban studies; cultural studies; Latin American women's fiction; and Latina and Chicana fiction.