FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.
Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions.
Julien is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on how technology interplays with society and international security through various topics such as nuclear technologies, energy transition, and technological risks, specifically in the Asia Pacific region and in the context of the U.S-China rivalry. A nuclear engineer by training, Julien has also worked to promote open-source and transparent scientific tools that can contribute to research in nuclear security and nuclear technologies. He is the project lead for the open-source nuclear reactor physics code ONIX (https://onix-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
Julien was a postdoctoral fellow at the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard’s Belfer Center from 2021 to 2022 and a nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2019 to 2021. He was also part of the Science and Global Security research team at Princeton University from 2014 to 2019 and regularly contributes to projects with the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM). Julien holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Princeton University, an M.Sc. in Nuclear Science and Technology from Tsinghua University Beijing, and a Diplôme d'Ingénieur (M.Sc. and B.Sc.Eng.) from Ecole Centrale de Marseille.
Xinru Ma’s research focuses on nationalism, great power politics, and East Asian security with a methodological focus on formal and computational methods. More broadly, Xinru’s research encompasses three main objectives: Substantively, she aims to better theorize and enhance cross-country perspectives on critical phenomena such as nationalism and its impact on international security; Methodologically, she strives to improve measurement and causal inference based on careful methodologies, including formal modeling and computational methods like natural language processing; Empirically, she challenges prevailing assumptions that inflate the perceived risk of militarized conflicts in East Asia, by providing original data and analysis rooted in local knowledge and regional perceptions.
At SNAPL, Xinru will lead the research group in collaborative projects that focus on US-Asia relations. One of the projects will contrast the rhetoric and debates in US politics surrounding the historical phenomenon of "Japan bashing" and the current perception of a "China threat.” By applying automated text analysis and qualitative analysis to public opinion data and textual data from various sources, such as congressional hearings and presidential speeches, this project uncovers the similarities, differences, and underlying factors driving the narratives and public discourse surrounding US-Asia relations. She will also provide mentorship to student research assistants and research associates.
Before joining SNAPL, Xinru was an assistant professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she led the Political Science Research Lab, a lab committed to closing the gender gap in computational methods and political science research by offering big-data methods training and professionalization workshops to students. Before that, Xinru was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University (2019-2020) and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University (2018-2019). In 2023, Xinru was selected as an International Strategy Forum fellow by Schmidt Futures, an initiative that recognizes the next generation of problem solvers with extraordinary potential in geopolitics, innovation, and public leadership.
Research Scholar, APARC Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab
Dr. Melissa Carlson is currently working with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation unit, where she promotes rigorous standards of measuring the effectiveness of the U.S.'s security cooperation and assistance programming. During her tenure at CISAC, she was a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in international relations, comparative politics, and methodology. Dr. Carlson's primary research examines the factors that influence the variation and intensity of partnerships between governments and foreign militant groups with a focus on the recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Her book-style dissertation project finds that, when foreign militant groups and state armed forces share similar organizational characteristics, they are more likely to deploy forces to conduct joint combat operations and provide each other with advanced weapons systems. In other research, Dr. Carlson examines the factors that influence informal and secret security cooperation between states and how misinformation and rumors influence refugees' relationships with host governments, service providers, and smugglers. Her research has been published in the American Political Science Review, the Review of International Organizations, and International Studies Quarterly, among other outlets. Outside of academia, Dr. Carlson has worked as a consultant for the International Organization for Migration's Iraq and Jordan Missions.
Dr. Lauren J. Borja is fellow at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She is also an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on high energy laser directed energy weapons. Specifically, Dr. Borja investigates the implications of the range of their possible uses from tactical to space to missile defense. She is also interested in issues in emerging technology and the role of science and technology in national security. She was a 2019–2020 Stanton Nuclear Security postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and a Simons postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs from 2017–2019. In 2016, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in physical chemistry. She was part of the NSquare Innovators Network (Cohort 3).
Americans have witnessed repeated mass shootings. The carnage in Texas and Ohio last weekend claimed another 31 lives and has left the nation stunned and angry.
Many are demanding that members of Congress pass tougher gun-control laws; others blame mental health and violent video games for the rampant shootings.
Stanford Health Policy’s David Studdert — an expert on the public health epidemic of firearms violence — acknowledges that mass shootings are on the rise in the United States.
“It’s been a horrific weekend,” said Studdert, a professor of law at Stanford Law School and professor of medicine at Stanford School of Medicine. “Experts now generally agree that mass shootings are becoming more common — and that a common thread is disaffected young men who have access to high-caliber, high-capacity weapons.”
Both suspects in the Dayton and El Paso shootings fit this profile.
Studdert notes, however, that while mass shootings have become the public face of gun violence, they account for less than 1% of the 40,000 firearm deaths each year.
“So as a public health researcher, I do care about mass shootings and I am interested in understanding and their causes — but the focus of my ongoing research is the other 99 percent.”
Largest investment in firearms research in two decades
It’s that focus the Studdert will be pursuing in a recently-awarded $668,000 grant from the National Collaboration on Gun Violence Research. The private collaborative’s mission is to fund nonpartisan, scientific research that offers the public and policymakers a factual basis for developing fair and effective gun policies.
Studdert, Yifan Zhang, a statistician with Stanford Health Policy, and Stanford political scientist Jonathan Rodden are working with colleagues at UC Davis, Northeastern University and Erasmus University Rotterdam on the Study of Handgun Ownership and Transfer, or LongSHOT.
The team is following several million Californians over a 12-year period to better understand the causal relationship between firearm ownership and mortality. They launched in 2016 with the initial goal of assessing the risks and benefits of ownership for firearm owners.
“The implications of firearm ownership for owners is important because they usually are the ones making the decision to purchase and own,” Studdert said. “But we knew from the beginning that this was only part of the picture. The presence of a firearm in the home may also have health implications for the owners’ family members.”
In the new study, the researchers will identify the cohort of adults in California who live with firearm owners but are not themselves gun owners, and then compare their risks of mortality to a group who neither own weapons, nor live with others who do.
Surprisingly little is known about the “secondhand” effects of having guns in the home.
“Existing studies don’t differentiate between owners and non-owners within households, and that is something we have the ability to look at,” Studdert said. “And a very large proportion of non-gun-owners who are living in homes with guns are women — so this is a group that has really been understudied.”
There is already substantial evidence that a gun in the home is associated with increased risks of suicide. But it is not clear how particular subgroups, such as women who don’t own guns, are affected.
“Because our cohort is so large,” Studdert said, “we will also be able to explore whether gun ownership confers certain benefits, as gun-rights advocates often claim, such as enhanced safety in dangerous neighborhoods.”
Studdert said a better accounting of the risks and benefits that firearm ownership poses for non-owners could help inform decisions regarding gun ownership and storage, as well as policies aimed at improving gun safety.
The politics of federal funding for firearms research
The National Collaboration on Gun Violence Research is funded through private philanthropic donations. It was seeded with a $20 million gift from Arnold Ventures and intends to raise another $30 million in private funding for firearms research.
“It’s the biggest investment in firearms research since the late 1990s,” Studdert said.
Research on the impact and causes of firearm violence was dealt a huge blow in 1996 when the so-called Dickey Amendment was passed by Congress. The law has been interpreted as prohibiting the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting firearms research.
Studdert said that the growth of research funding from philanthropies like the Arnold Foundation and Joyce Foundation is a welcome development, but that it will take a large and sustained investment to move the science of firearm violence forward.
“The core funder of large-scale research essentially vacated the space for 20 years,” he said. “It’s going to take some time to recover. Developing a generation of researchers with expertise will take give to 10 years. But it has to be done — the size of the social problem demands it.”
The world is experiencing an unprecedented period of geopolitical change and technological disruption. How should we rethink U.S. national security and defense in an era of intensifying great power competition? What principles should guide US policy and presidents in the future?
Speaker's Biography: Michèle Flournoy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors, and former Co- Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves on the board.
Michèle served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She was the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations.
Michèle is a former member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the CIA Director’s External Advisory Board, and the Defense Policy Board. She’s currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and sits on the Honorary Advisory Committee of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security. Michèle serves on the boards of Booz Allen Hamilton, Amida Technology Solutions, The Mission Continues, Spirit of America, CARE, the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation.
Hauck Auditorium, David and Joan Traitel Building of Hoover Institution435 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305
Michèle Flournoy
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
WestExec Advisors
Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.
Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.
Shaili Chopra, India
Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I run a platform called SheThePeopleTv. It's a platform for women, and it aims to share news, opinions, data and statistics through a gendered lens. Women are a critical part of democracy — from where I come, in India, we have 600 million women. That's half of the country's population. I think they must also have half of the country’s voice, which they don't.
“I think a big plus of a program like Draper Hills is that when we are all working in the general construct of democracy, we have shared problems, and we also look for shared solutions. It's very empowering to be around people who understand these situations, or have found solutions or overcame them in their countries, or are going through similar problems. You can discuss them and get a sense of solidarity and a sense of empathy.”
Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia
Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.
“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.
“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.”
Ujwal Thapa, Nepal
Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner
“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.
“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.
“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”
N.S. Nappinai, India
N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I'm a lawyer — I specialize in cyber laws. My work throughout my career has been focused on ensuring responsible technology and the use of technology to fight crime. Two years ago I was appointed by the Supreme Court of India as Amicus Curiae on a matter related to protecting against the uploading of videos and images of gang rape and child pornography online.
“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.
“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”
Hinda Bouddane, Morocco
Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I'm involved in women's empowerment and education for girls in Morocco. And especially for women in rural areas — they are less privileged, and many of them don't know their rights. So my fight through JA Worldwide and my activism is to empower these women and to raise awareness about their rights and the importance of education for girls.
“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.
At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”
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The 2019 Draper Hills Class of 2019 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Photo: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Former Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford Internet Observatory
Daniel Bush
PhD
Daniel Bush is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where he studies internet culture in Russia and Ukraine. He received his PhD in Stanford’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in 2018 and was previously a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Poetic Media Lab, a research and pedagogy lab at Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis. His research has been published in Canadian Slavonic Papers and The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy.
As the internet has increasingly been used to weaponize information, governments and technology companies have begun to grapple with new issues surrounding free expression and privacy.
Technology companies are being called upon to reshape their privacy and hate speech policies, and politicians are tackling the possibility of tech industry regulation.
Achieving both of those things, according to Eileen Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI), is easier said than done.
“They all know that they need help,” Donahoe told Freeman Spogli Institute Director Michael McFaul on an episode of the World Class podcast. “Private-sector entities are looking for help from civil society and academics. And governments need help if for no other reason than they don’t always understand what’s going on in the platforms."
Free Speech Dilemma
Facebook and Google both have their own definitions of free speech, their own community values and their own terms of service, which they dictate to their billions of users. But their parameters of free expression are not always aligned with those of the U.S. government, Donahoe said.
“There’s an interplay between the rules of the platforms and the rules of the governments in which they operate, and that’s causing a lot of confusion,” she said. “We’re trying to help develop an appropriate metaphor for what these platforms are — some see themselves as a utility, some see them as editors and media. Whatever metaphor you pick, the rules and responsibilities that flow from it will be different. And we don’t have a metaphor yet.”
Over the last few years, tech companies have begun asking outsiders for help in developing norms for their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that he was developing an “External Oversight Board” to help the company evaluate its community guidelines and for assistance with some of the content-based decisions on its platform.
Some companies are going as far as to call on the government for regulation, she said.
“They recognize that they’re not well suited to develop all of these norms for [their] platforms, which have such gigantic effects on society,” Donahoe said.
To Regulate or Not to Regulate
Several heads of technology companies have testified in front of the U.S. Senate this summer, including Zuckerberg, who answered questions about the company’s new cryptocurrency, and Karan Bhatia, Google's vice president for government affairs and public policy who testified on the question of whether Google’s search engine censors conservative media.
“Techlash” — the growing animosity toward large technology companies — has been on the rise, Donahoe said, and the government isn’t sure what their next steps are in handling these issues with the technology companies yet.
“So many congressional representatives and senators are a bit reticent to jump in,” she said. “They don’t want to undermine free expression, and they don’t want to destroy the American internet industry.”
Europe has already started tackling this problem with the passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which standardizes data protection laws across all countries in the European Union.
Donahoe said that while she thinks the GDPR is a good move, there have been other laws passed in Europe, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act — which puts the liability on social media companies to censor the content on their respective platforms — that undermine free expression and democratic values.
“It shifts what we would normally consider democratic responsibility for assessing criminality to the private sector, and I find that problematic,” Donahoe said. “It’s a dangerous concept — a government is asking platforms to restrict content and be liable in a tort basis for content that is perceived to be harmful…it’s a very slippery slope.”
Eileen Donahoe served as the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Follow her at @EileenDonahoe
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Eileen Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator, presents at the 2019 Copenhagen Democracy Summit. Photo: Alliance of Democracies
Images of children on the battlefield or posing for a ‘last will and testament’ poster before a suicide operation suggest the extent to which ISIS has weaponized children. The use of children in terrorist propaganda has become a regular feature of their strategic messaging and has accelerated over time. While tasking children with a variety of support functions – scouts, drummers, or couriers is not new, the ways in which terrorist organizations have deployed children has evolved. The exploitation of children represents a relatively new development, both tactically and strategically. Attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria show that the median age of suicide bombers is decreasing. This presentation will provide evidence that terrorist groups have increased their use of children on the front lines despite assertions to the contrary and that important variation exists across groups based on location, country of origin, and the gender of the children with a particular emphasis on ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Speaker's Biography:
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Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia State University. She conducts ethnographic field research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She has authored books and articles on terrorism and violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (2007) and Bombshell: Women and Terror (2011). Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard and McGill Universities. Bloom’s newest book is Small Arms: Children and Terror (2019). Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a Masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.
Mia Bloom
Professor of Communication
Georgia State University
Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner
Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner
N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner
Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner
