Dr. Sun’s science seminar will focus on China's nuclear doctrine, introducing its decision-making regime and history, its major principles on nuclear weapons development and employment, and its position on and approach to the arms control.

About the speaker: Dr. Sun Xiangli is the director of the Arms Control Research Division of the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS), China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP). Before her entering into CSS in 2008, she worked at the Beijing Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics (IAPCM) since 1993. During 1995 to 1996 and in early 2008, she worked at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, as a visiting scholar. Her research focuses on arms control and international security such as verification technologies for nuclear disarmament, China's nuclear strategy, U.S. nuclear policies, and Proliferation issues. She received her B.S. in nuclear physics from Peking University in 1990, M.S. in nuclear physics from the Graduate School of the CAEP in 1993, and PhD in international politics from Peking University in 2001.

China’s “rise” has been achieved through participation in the international system led by the United States, but many predict that Beijing will attempt to replace the US-led global order with one shaped by its own vision and priorities.  The 2013 Oksenberg Lecture will examine China’s desire and ability to remake the global order by focusing on what it would like to retain and what it would like to change.  Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow Thomas Fingar will give the keynote address, and Professors Thomas Christensen (Princeton) and Jia Qingguo (Peking University) will provide commentary and their own views on the subject.

The Oksenberg Lecture, held annually, honors the legacy of Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938-2001). A senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor Oksenberg served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.

SPEAKERS

Thomas Fingar is the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2004–2005), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001–2003), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994–2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989–1994), and chief of the China Division (1986–1989). Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (AB in government and history, 1968), and Stanford University (MA, 1969 and PhD, 1977 both in political science).

Thomas Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. Before arriving at Princeton in 2003, he taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his B.A. from Haverford College, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Jia Qingguo is Professor and Associate Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988. He has taught in University of Vermont, Cornell University, University of California at San Diego, University of Sydney in Australia as well as Peking University. He was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution between 1985 and 1986, a visiting professor at the University of Vienna in 1997 and a CNAPS fellow at the Brookings Institution between 2001 and 2002. He is a member of Standing Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League.

A central dilemma persists for national space actors: satellites are critical to economic, scientific, and national security activities, but spacecraft are vulnerable to malfunction, environmental failure, and hostile disruptions. 'Distributed satellite' mission approaches may provide a means to supplement the security of certain satellite systems by increasing both redundancy and physical dispersion. But how do national leaders make decisions between satellite architectures given these overall risks and unknown development costs? This talk will review some current context in American space programs and present a formal model based on parallel Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) for analysis of satellite architecture decisions.

Dr. Connell will give an overview of radiological terrorism, focused on high activity radiation sources in the US and the risk they pose for malevolent use. He has been involved in developing countermeasures to radiological terrorism and will discuss some of the current efforts by the US to reduce this risk. The main thrust of his talk will be about how the risks can be managed.

Dr. Connell is a Senior Scientist with the Systems Analysis Group at Sandia National Laboratories. He is a technical advisor on unconventional nuclear warfare, and radiological/nuclear terrorism to DOE, DHS, and the DOD. He has served as a subject matter expert on a number of Defense Science Board Studies dealing with unconventional nuclear warfare and radiological terrorism. In 2004, Dr. Connell worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to help identify and locate high risk radiation sources in Iraq and also served in Baghdad as a member of the Iraq Survey Group, Nuclear Team. He has published several reports on the risk of radiological terrorism and the vulnerability of cesium chloride irradiators. He was a committee member on the 2008 National Academy of Sciences Committee on Radiation Source Use and Replacement. Prior to working at Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. Connell was a Naval Officer and taught nuclear propulsion theory at the Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando Florida. He has a B.S. with High Honor in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of New Mexico.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the success of antibiotics and vaccines in controlling or eradicating infectious diseases (ID) worldwide resulted in decreased emphasis on development of ID therapeutics. The emergence in the past three decades of HIV, SARS, West Nile, avian flu, swine flu, Ebola, and the potential for bioterrorist attacks has reversed this trend and renewed interest in treatment and prophylaxis of ID. Unfortunately, because many diseases are prevalent primarily in developing nations (e.g., malaria, TB, Chagas), potential sales of bioterrorist pathogens are limited mainly to orders for government stockpiles (e.g., anthrax, smallpox, botulinum toxin), and the cost of anti-infective clinical trials is high, traditional large pharmaceutical companies have cut back R&D resources in this arena. To combat this investment shortfall, a new paradigm has emerged where public-private partnerships between the NIH, World Health Organization, private foundations, academia, and non-profits, are beginning to function like pharmaceutical companies to advance the development of promising ID drugs, even when there is little opportunity for profit. This talk will discuss the growing need for ID therapeutics, present some new models for discovering and developing them, and provide examples of public-private partnerships that have advanced therapeutics for specific infectious diseases.

About the speaker: Dr. Jon C. Mirsalis is Managing Director of the Biosciences Division and Executive Director of Preclinical Development at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA. Dr. Mirsalis is an internationally recognized expert in the development of drugs for infectious diseases. He manages two large programs for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for the development of promising therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of a broad range of infectious diseases including TB, malaria, influenza, polio, anthrax, plague, and Ebola. He has personally been involved in the development of over 50 therapeutics that have entered clinical trials and several have already reached the market. Before joining SRI in 1981, Dr. Mirsalis was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, where he developed the in vivo-in vitro hepatocyte DNA repair assay, which is now widely used as a screen for potential carcinogens by government and industry. He is the author of over 140 publications and abstracts. Dr. Mirsalis received his B.S. degree in zoology/molecular biology from Kent State University, his M.S. degree in genetics from North Carolina State University, and holds Ph.D. degrees in toxicology and genetics from North Carolina State University. Dr. Mirsalis has an adjunct faculty appointment with the University of California-Santa Cruz, where he lectures regularly on genetic toxicology and carcinogenesis. He has recently served on the Board of Scientific Councilors for the National Toxicology Program, the Advisory Board for the Critical Path Institute, and is a past member of the FDA’s Over-the-Country Product Review Committee. Dr. Mirsalis has been certified by the American Board of Toxicology since 1983.