Welcome back students, faculty and staff!  Check out what the School has been up to this summer, and where we're headed. We're looking forward to a fantastic year!

We are very pleased to report that at their meeting yesterday the Regents of the University System of Georgia appointed Dr. Sy Goodman a Regents Professor. This is a signal honor for Dr. Goodman, for the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, for the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (the first such appointment in the College) and for Georgia Tech.

How Does It End and What Can We Do? Addressing the Underlying Causes of Ideological Extremism

For the last two decades, United States security policy has been dominated by a series of crises within and emanating from the Middle East.  Almost every conflict within this region affects one or more of America’s national security interests including preventing terrorist attacks on the homeland and against American citizens abroad, security for U.S. allies and partners, and the promotion of universal values.

On September 22, 2016, The Sam Nunn Bank School of International Affairs and The Honorable Sam Nunn will host its biennial policy forum and examine what lies ahead and what we can do to address the ideological extremism. This year’s Forum will feature constructive dialogue to address the intersection between underlying causes, national security interests, and tangible steps that governments — particularly, the United States — can pursue to mitigate these challenges.

Keynote Speaker:

General John R. Allen, UMSC (retired)
Co-director of the Center for the 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institute and former special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL

Registration for the Forum, as well as a full overview and program listing on all participants, can be found at on the International Affairs website.

The Nunn School is excited to welcome our newest MSIA and IAST class. Students had an opportunity to meet one another and explore Georgia Tech at the graduate student orientation. 

Professor of the Practice Admiral (ret) James "Sandy" Winnefeld co-authored The Scourge of  Extremism: Move Beyond The Symptoms And Treat The Disease along with former Deputy Director of the CIA, Michael Morell. Both were also highlighted on Charlie Rose to discuss the battle against extremism. 

During this summer's Rio 2016 Olympics, Dr. Kirk Bowman worked tirelessly to prepare and present his Reimagine Rio Film Festival. 

The film event highlighted innovation and development in the Favelas of Rio, and is part of Bowman's broader initiative to challenge the conventional wisdom of global development through his NGO, Rise Up and Care!. This work is a continuation of the global development philosophy he laid out in his 2015 Tedx Talk, "The World Doesn't Need Another New Non-profit".

Dr. Bowman's work in Brazil, both through Rise Up and Care! and the Reimagine Rio Film Festival, has been widely received. It has been highlighted in Brasileiros (one of the largest magazines in Brazil), the Washington Post, the Today Show, and NBC, among other publications. 

Learn more about the Reimagine Rio Festival and Bowman's research project at Riseup.Care. 

On April 29-30, Georgia Tech’s Center for European and Transatlantic Studies hosted a workshop on “21st Century Trade Politics: TTIP as a Test Case?” The workshop brought together scholars from the U.S., Europe and Canada to analyze the politics associated with negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which former World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy has characterized as the world’s first true 21st century trade agreement. The participants concluded that the politics of TTIP are distinctive in terms of the extent of mobilization, particularly in Europe, and in the degree to which diverse governmental actors have been drawn into the negotiations. They observed, however, that while these features are uniquely intense in the context of TTIP, they are not confined to it.

On May 16, Dr. Lawrence Rubin spoke about the Sykes-Picot agreement and its implications for Middle East politics at Fort Benning. He joined a distinguished panel for the MCoE Leader Professional Development looking back at the 100th Anniversary of the agreement.

In addition to speaking at Fort Benning, Dr. Rubin recently had his paper "Islamic Political Activism among Israel's Negev Bedouin population" published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Congratulations Dr. Rubin!

Emeritus Professor John Garver spoke at the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York City on April 14th. He discussed the history of China's foreign relations. To listen to Dr. Garver's podcast on the issues, click here

Dr. Garver was also quoted in an article Checking the Mates, which discusses US-Indo relations. 

Congratulations to Dr. Zachary Taylor on the publication of his new book, The Politics of Innovation: Why Some Countries Are Better Than Others At Science & Technology. This book brings together the current political and economic wisdom, and latest findings, about why nations become S&T leaders. 

Dr. Taylor also presented a joint paper with PhD student Jon Schmid, “Alliances and Innovation” at the Economics and Security Reconsidered workshop sponsored by International Organization at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Georgia Tech Cybersecurity Leadership Certificate Program was presented under the guidance of Admiral James A. Winnefeld, Jr., former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired. This intensive, four-day program addressed cybersecurity risks and the technology, policy, legal, and human dimensions that senior executives need to master to proactively manage, evaluate, and respond to cybersecurity threats. In addition to engaging lectures for Georgia Tech experts, the program also included presentations from industry and government leaders, a tour of a security operations center, and a table top scenario exercise.

The program was made possible by a cyber workforce development collaboration between Georgia Tech Professional Education, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the School of Public Policy, the Institute for Information Security and Privacy, and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

Ivan Allen College and Georgia Tech students will help shape U.S. foreign policy through our new partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomacy Lab. Learn more here. 

Dr. Margaret E. Kosal was an invited participant at Special Operations Forces (SOF) 2016 Education Conference on held at Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) at McDill AFB in Tampa FL on 28 -29 June 2016. The conference focused on the strategic direction of SOF education and how technology and instructional methodology can be used to improve SOF-related learning outcomes. Kosal spoke in a session on “Learning Science and its Body of Knowledge” on emerging science and technology and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Dr. Kosal also participated in the Defense Entrepreneurial Forum (DEF) in Columbus GA. Organized by officers from the US Army at Ft Benning, DEFx Columbus brought together military, academics, and those from the private sector to talk about topics including cybersecurity, strategy, new technology for national security, and leadership for the 21st Century.

In addtion, she traveled to Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of a delegation of GT Faculty in order to help build collaborations between GT & the national lab. The faculty visited the Spallation Neutron Source, the Center for Nanophase Materials, the Computational Sciences facility, and the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility.

Dr. Kosal has also been appointed Co-Editor-in-Chief for the the journal "Politics and the Life Sciences," published by Cambridge University Press. She had an article published on "Regulating genetic research and applications", and was quoted on Russia's ability to obtain nanotechnology. 

We are so excited and proud of recent EIA graduate, Dillon Roseen! He has had a stellar resumé while he's been here at Georgia Tech and the Nunn School. Now he has been awarded a Fulbright and will be headed off to the Netherlands to earn a master’s degree in the law and politics of international security. Congratulations, Dillon!

Our students and faculty adventured across the world this summer to put their studies into practice! The Nunn School sponsored four study abroad programs:

The European Union Study Abroad Program, led by Dr. Vicki Birchfield, is a 10 week, 12 credit summer program in Europe focuses on the history, institutions and current politics and policies of the EU, the role of the EU as a global actor and the diplomatic, economic and security dimensions of the EU-US relationship. This year, sudents spent time in Brussels, Scandinavia, Paris, The Netherlands, Berlin, and Krakow. 

The Macau Program, led by Dr. Wang, is a new, expenses-paid summer program offered in partnership with the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS). It is a six-week long guided research program worth 6 Computer Science or International Affairs credit hours. Based in Macau, China, participants will engage in research programs focused on information and communication technologies and international development, especially in an Asian context.

The Spain and Portugal Study Abroad, led by Dr. Kirk Bowman, started with a course on the history, culture, soccer, and politics of Spain. Students then had the option to choose a second course on either Mediterranean Ecology (Biology credit) or the Political Economy of Development (Cross-listed International Affairs and Management).

The Southeast Asia Study Abroad, led by Dr. Katja Weber, explored nontraditional security challenges (piracy, terrorism, illegal trafficking, infectious disease, etc.) across four Southeast Asian states: Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia which reflect different development levels. Aside from investigating the role of institutions and the relationship between sovereignty-related norms and human rights, another major focus is the role of science and technology in ameliorating or exacerbating traditional and non-traditional security challenges in Southeast Asia.

Congralutions to Dr. Mariel Borowitz on her newest publications. The first,  "Is It Time for Commercial Weather Satellites? Analyzing the Case of Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation" discusses the future of commercial weather satellites. The second, "Multidisciplinary evaluation of next steps for human space exploration: Technical and strategic analysis of options", was co-authored with a researcher at MIT, has been published in the most recent issue of the journal Space Policy 

In addition, Dr. Borowitz was quoted by the L.A. Times in an article covering the U.S. government's plans to approve a private moon mission. 

PhD candidate, Amanda Meng was invited to collaborate in an election-themed hackathon in the Dominican Republic. The hackathon was a regional event with parallel hackathons taking place in Jamaica, Cuba, St. Lucia, Curacao, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Amanda helped launch the hackathon with a panel presentation on the use of ICTs for civic electoral monitoring. She coordinated presentations from partners in Perú, Argentina, and the United Nations University - Center for Computing and Society. She then traveled to Santo Domingo to serve as the lead judge and assist in the implementation of a multi-channel platform for crowdsourcing electoral misconduct and irregularities. The platform used software developed at Georgia Tech to crawl through social media for election relevant chatter and collected 497 incidents through web form, SMS, and a chatbot.

Dr. Alasdair Young presented a paper on "Transatlantic Trade Institutionalization and Politicization" at a workshop on the "Institutionalization of Transatlantic Relations" at City Law School, City University of London. The workshop was organized by Elaine Fahey (center) and participants included the chair of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee Claude Moraes. Much of the conversation in the margins was about the UK's decision to leave the EU.Enter your description

On June 2-4, 2016, the Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE) hosted a workshop in Washington, DC that brought together promising academics from across the globe to analyze alternative theoretical frameworks and methodologies appropriate to advancing POSSE’s shift towards understanding the strategic implications of emerging technologies against the shadow of lingering but variable nuclear salience across different regions of the globe. Topics discussed during the two day workshop included Cyber, Survivability, Escalation, Arms Control, and Signaling.
In addition to these round table discussions, participants had the unique opportunity to discuss strategic stability issues with Admiral (ret.) James “Sandy” Winnefeld, Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dr. James N. Miller, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Following this discussion, participants engaged with Dr. William Roper, Director - Strategic Capabilities Office, Department of Defense; Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Mr. Bruce Turner, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Security, Technology, and Implementation, and Mr. Gregory J. Weaver, Deputy Director (DD) for Strategic Stability, Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5), the Joint Staff.
The purpose of POSSE is to reinvigorate inter-disciplinary, international scholarship on issues of strategic stability in a post-nuclear weapons era. An important component of this effort entails stimulating not only new policy-relevant scholarship but nurturing dialogue among the next generation of international scholars on nuclear disarmament and risk reduction issues—with a particular focus on the United States, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China.

Congratulations to Dr. Lawerence Rubin and Dr. Jenna Jordan on their co-published article, An ISIS Containment Doctrine. The article adapts George Kennan's interpretation of containment to ISIS as a state, a social movement, and a transnational organization.

Professor Boston was interviewed on his thoughts about the impact of the '96 Olympics on current public housing models. The article also discussed the mixed-income model of housing.