The Biodefense Policy Seminars are monthly talks focused on biodefense and biosecurity broadly conceived. Free and open to the public, they feature leading figures within the academic, security, industry, and policy fields. Launched in the Spring of this year, the Seminars have been a tremendous success. Our Fall lineup features leaders from across the government and academic sectors, including Dr. Daniel Dogden at ASPR, Dr. Paul Walker of Green Cross, and Dr. Kathleen Vogel.
Fall 2013 Biodefense Policy Seminars
September Seminar: “The ABCs of Including Special Populations in Biodefense and Public Health Preparedness”
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Dodgen
Date: Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 at 7:20 PM
Where: Meese Conference Room, Mason Hall, GMU Fairfax Campus
Join us as Dr. Daniel Dodgen discusses the importance of including special populations in Biodefense & Public Health planning. Dr. Dodgen is the Director for At-Risk Individuals, Behavioral Health, and Community Resilience in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). His office is tasked with ensuring that HHS is developing policies and capabilities for emergency planning, response, and recovery activities that integrate at-risk individuals (including children), behavioral health, and community resilience. Dr. Dodgen also served as the Executive Director of the White House directed national advisory group on disaster mental health, and played a coordinating role in the federal response to Hurricanes Sandy, Gustav, Ike, and Dean; the H1N1 epidemic, the BP oil spill, the Sandy Hook school shooting, and other natural and manmade disasters.
October Seminar Title: “Syria and Chemical Weapons: Building a World Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction”
Speaker: Dr. Paul Walker
Date: October 16, 2013 at 7:20PM
Location: Meese Conference Room, Mason Hall, GMU Fairfax Campus
Paul Walker will join us to discuss Syrian proliferation concerns. Dr. Walker is the International Director of the Environmental Security and Sustainability (ESS) Program for Green Cross International (GCI) and manages the Washington DC office for GCI and its US national affiliate, Global Green USA. The ESS Program is an international effort to facilitate and advocate the safe and environmentally sound demilitarization, nonproliferation, and remediation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons stockpiles. Walker has worked, spoken, and published widely in the related areas of international security, threat reduction, non-proliferation, weapons demilitarization, and environmental security for over three decades and took part in the first on-site inspection by US officials of the Russian chemical weapons stockpile at Shchuch’ye in the Kurgan Oblast in 1994. Since that time he has worked closely with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), US and Russian officials, the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, the G-8 Global Partnership, and other multilateral regimes to help foster cooperative, timely, and safe elimination of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and related systems. He has helped to permanently eliminate over 50,000 tons of chemical weapons and millions of munitions in six countries to date. Dr. Walker was also recently awarded the 2013 Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the alternate Nobel Peace Prize. To read more about the award and Dr. Walker’s work, visit their website here.
November Seminar Title: Project BACHUS: Forecasting Bioweapons Threats with Experiment and Demonstration
Speaker: Kathleen Vogel
Date: November 21, 2013, 7:20PM
Location: Meese Conference Room, Mason Hall, GMU Fairfax Campus
Dr. Vogel will describe a 1990s bioweapons threat assessment that involved setting up a mock bioweapons production facility as an “experiment”. The talk will discuss the difference between a scientific experiment and scientific demonstration and why it is important to interrogate what things are labeled as “experiments” and the implications that has for bioweapons assessments. Kathleen Vogel is an associate professor at Cornell, with a joint appointment in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Vogel holds a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Princeton University. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Vogel was appointed as a William C. Foster Fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction in the Bureau of Nonproliferation. Vogel has also spent time as a visiting scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her research focuses on studying the social and technical dimensions of bioweapons threats and the production of knowledge in intelligence assessments on WMD issues.
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Paul Walker will join us to discuss Syrian proliferation concerns. Dr. Walker is the International Director of the Environmental Security and Sustainability (ESS) Program for Green Cross International (GCI) and manages the Washington DC office for GCI and its US national affiliate, Global Green USA. The ESS Program is an international effort to facilitate and advocate the safe and environmentally sound demilitarization, nonproliferation, and remediation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons stockpiles. Walker has worked, spoken, and published widely in the related areas of international security, threat reduction, non-proliferation, weapons demilitarization, and environmental security for over three decades and took part in the first on-site inspection by US officials of the Russian chemical weapons stockpile at Shchuch’ye in the Kurgan Oblast in 1994. Since that time he has worked closely with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), US and Russian officials, the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, the G-8 Global Partnership, and other multilateral regimes to help foster cooperative, timely, and safe elimination of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and related systems. He has helped to permanently eliminate over 50,000 tons of chemical weapons and millions of munitions in six countries to date. Dr. Walker was also recently awarded the 2013 Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the alternate Nobel Peace Prize. To read more about the award and Dr. Walker’s work, visit their website here.
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