About the Topic: There remain persistent shortcomings in U.S. government and nongovernment assessments of biological weapons threats—shortcomings with important national security implications.  This long track record showing a consistent pattern of error regarding bioweapons threats stems from a striking conformity in judgments about biotechnology and its possible uses. Government and nongovernment analysts assert that the increasing ease, pace, and diffusion of biotechnology is creating a growing, elusive, and more technologically advanced set of bioweapons threats. But this conclusion fails to incorporate crucial social factors that can powerfully shape the development, use, and evaluation of biotechnology for weapons purposes. To illustrate these points, Vogel will discuss the U.S. intelligence failures on Iraqi mobile bioweapons laboratories leading up to the 2003 Iraq War and illustrate the importance of using a sociotechnical understanding of bioweapons threats and its implications for threat assessments and policymaking. 

About the Speaker: Kathleen Vogel is an associate professor at Cornell University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Science & Technology Studies and the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.  Dr. Vogel studies the production of knowledge on technical security policy issues.  Her recent book with The Johns Hopkins University Press, Phantom Menace or Looming Danger?  A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats, examines the social context and processes of how U.S. governmental and non-governmental analysts produce knowledge about contemporary biological weapons threats.  Dr. Vogel received her PhD in biological chemistry from Princeton University. 

--Co-Hosted with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences--

Director Albright will give a CISAC science seminar as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Workshop on Dual-Use Technologies within their Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Penrose C. "Parney" Albright is the 11th Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the second president of Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC. Albright has extensive experience in executive leadership, including policy direction, strategic planning, congressional and executive branch interactions, financial and personnel management of large mission-focused science and technology organizations, and research, development, testing, and evaluation of national security technologies and systems. He has a broad and deep understanding of U.S. military and international security requirements, functions, and processes in the national security arena.

Anupma Kulkarni is currently a Fellow of the Stanford Center for International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN) and Co-director of the West Africa Transitional Justice (WATJ) Project, a cross-national study on the impact of truth commissions and international criminal tribunals from the perspective of victims of human rights violations in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.  Dr. Kulkarni received her PhD in Political Science from Stanford University and was Assistant Professor at Arizona State University from 2007-2009.  She has been a MacArthur International Peace and Cooperation Fellow at CISAC and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law.  Her research specializes in transitional justice, the ways in which post-war and post-authoritarian societies address matters of memory and accountability for human rights violations as part of the larger project of effecting democratic change and political and social reconciliation.  Her book manuscript, Demons and Demos: Truth, Accountability and Democracy in Post-Apartheid South Africa, is based on her award-winning fieldwork in South Africa.  She is also co-authoring, with David Backer, The Arc of Transitional Justice: Violent Conflict, Its Victims & Pursuing Redress in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, a book based on primary research conducted under the auspices of the WATJ Project, made possible through generous support from the National Science Foundation.

The world has undergone major drastic changes in the last two decades driven by several major factors, eg, explosion of human population and connectivity. Such changes seem further accelerated in recent years and it seems that our future becomes more uncertain and unpredictable. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident awakened us and led to creation of Independent Investigation Commission by the National Diet of Japan; The Commission Report revealed some of the fundamental issues of Japan’s nuclear policy. Meanwhile, multi-stakeholders’ engagement has become critical in various social affairs and in policy making domains within and across national boundaries, and has contributed in significant ways to affect the processes of addressing and impacting global agenda, such as climate change, food and water, energy, urbanization, biodiversity, human capital with shifting the balance of economy and power. In my view, the principles of our society may be changing quite fast heading somewhat differently from our conventional norm. The science community can and should contribute to these issues in nurturing future leaders, but in what way?

Kiyoshi Kurokawa is a graduate of University of Tokyo School of Medicine, trained in internal medicine and nephrology, in US 1969-84; Professor of Med, Dept Med ofUCLA Sch Med (79-84), Chair, Univ Tokyo Faculty of Med (89-96), Dean of Tokai Univ School of Med (96-02, President of Science Council of Japan (03-07), Science Advisor to Prime Minister (07-09), Board member of A*STAR (06-00), Bibliotheca Alexandria (04-08), Khalifa University (08- ), Okinawa Institute of Science and Tech (06- ), Global Science and Innovation Advisory Board of the Prime Minister of Malaysia (11-); President of Intl Soc Nephrology (97-99), Inst of Medicine of US Academies (92). Recently, chaired Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission by the National Diet of Japan (Dec 11-July 12). AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award (2012), ‘100 Top Global Thinkers 2012” of Foreign Policy.