Nuclear Security After the Summits with Amb. Laura S. H. Holgate
Date & Time: February 28, 2018 | 12:00 AM – 12:00 AM
Location: 101 Reber Building – E-Knowledge Commons
Retired U.S. Ambassador Laura S. H. Holgate will deliver the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and School of International Affairs Distinguished Lecture at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 27, in 101 Reber Building – E-Knowledge Commons. A meet-and-greet session with refreshments will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the same location.
Nuclear Security After the Summits
Even as the risk of intentional nuclear war appears to be rising, potential for a terrorist nuclear attack remains a major global threat. The accumulation of large stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials, and the associated imperative to prevent their theft or diversion for malicious uses, animated international dialogue before the first Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, and persists after the fourth and final Summit in 2016. The 2016 Summit set forth a vision for how to continue the Summits’ important work, which is yet to be fully realized. Nuclear security demands some difficult and sometimes expensive choices from governments, but it also requires the participation of civil society and the nuclear energy industry. While current understandings of nuclear security developed after the deployment of most existing nuclear power plants around the world, the development of a next generation of nuclear energy technologies offers an opportunity to incorporate nuclear security into the design of these new facilities that could significantly improve the future of nuclear security.
Ambassador Laura S. H. Holgate
Holgate is a senior nonresident fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. She is currently a consultant to the Third Way’s project on advanced nuclear reactors and national security, and to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. From 2016 to 2017, Holgate represented the United States at the International Atomic Energy Agency and UN offices in Vienna. In this role, she advanced U.S. priorities in nonproliferation, nuclear security, and verification of the Iran nuclear deal. From 2009 to 2016, Holgate was the special assistant to the president and senior director on the National Security Council, where she coordinated the development of national policies and programs to thwart terrorist access to and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. She was the U.S. sherpa to the Nuclear Security Summits and co-led the Global Health Security Agenda. Holgate held senior positions at the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative as well as the Departments of Energy and Defense, in which she designed and implemented innovative approaches to reducing the weapons of mass destruction threats posed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Holgate holds degrees from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.