Andrew C. Weber
Monday, September 9, 2019
Topic: Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction
Hon. Andy Weber is an independent consultant and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank. He has dedicated his professional life to countering nuclear, chemical, and biological threats and to strengthening global health security.
Weber’s thirty years of US government service included five-and-a-half years as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs. He was a driving force behind Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts to remove weapons-grade uranium from Kazakhstan and Georgia and nuclear-capable MiG-29 aircraft from Moldova, to reduce biological weapons threats, and to destroy Libyan and Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles. In addition, he coordinated US leadership of the international Ebola response for the Department of State.
Prior to joining the Pentagon as Advisor for Threat Reduction Policy in December 1996, Mr. Weber was posted abroad as a US Foreign Service Officer in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Hong Kong. Mr. Weber is currently a Strategic Advisor for Ginkgo BioWorks and consultant for DARPA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and others. He serves on the Boards of the Arms Control Association and Healthcare Ready, and the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies International Advisory Council.
He taught a course on Force and Diplomacy at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service for seven years, and was a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Mr. Weber graduated from Cornell University and holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) degree from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His twitter handle is @AndyWeberNCB