Past Speakers

Michael Camilleri

Monday, October 12, 2020

Topic: Bolsonaro’s Brazil: Latin America’s Noisy Neighbor?

Ambassador Jeffery L. Bleich

Monday, September 14, 2020

Topic: The Geopolitics of Australia's Situation

Admiral James Stavridis (USN Ret)

Monday, August 24, 2020

Topic: 21st Century Security: Challenges and Opportunities

Admiral James A. Winnefeld (U.S. Navy Retired)

Monday, May 18, 2020

Topic: The National Security Implications of the Opioid Crisis

THIS MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR A LATER DATE.

 

Admiral James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld, Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired), graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He instructed at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as Topgun, and served as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS CLEVELAND, and the aircraft carrier USS ENTERPRISE. As a flag officer, he commanded a carrier strike group, two NATO commands, the United States SIXTH Fleet, United States NORTHERN Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD. He retired after serving as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States’ number two ranking military officer.

Admiral Winnefeld is a frequently published author and a director or advisory board member for companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, where he is also a member of the Engineering Hall of Fame. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Board of Visitors of the United States Naval Academy and the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. Admiral Winnefeld and his wife, Mary, are Co-Chairs of SAFE Project.US, a national nonprofit committed to helping reverse the epidemic of drug overdose fatalities in the United States

 

Shuja Nawaz

Monday, March 9, 2020

Topic: Pakistan

Shuja Nawaz is a political and strategic analyst.  He is a Distinguished Fellow, South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council In Washington DC.  Mr. Nawaz writes for leading newspapers and The Huffington Post, and speaks on current topics before civic groups, at think tanks, and on radio and television.   He has worked on projects with RAND, the United States Institute of Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council, and other leading think tanks on projects dealing with Pakistan and the Middle East.  In January 2009 he was made the first Director of the South Asia Center at The Atlantic Council of the United States.

Mr. Nawaz was educated at Gordon College, Rawalpindi, where he obtained a BA in Economics and English literature, and at the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University in New York, where he was a Cabot Fellow and won the Henry Taylor International Correspondent Award.  He was a newscaster and news and current affairs producer for Pakistan Television from 1967 to 1972 and covered the western front of the 1971 war between Pakistan and India as well as President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s visit to China January-February 1972.

Mr. Nawaz has worked for the New York Times, the World Health Organization, and has headed three separate divisions at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  He was also a director at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1999 to 2001, while on leave from the IMF.  Mr. Nawaz was the managing editor and then Editor of Finance & Development, the multilingual quarterly of the IMF and the World Bank. He served on the editorial advisory board of the World Bank Research Observer.

Mr. Nawaz’s latest book, The Battle for Pakistan:  The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood, will be published under the Vintage imprint and release in August 2019.  He also is the author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within (Oxford University Press 2nd edition 2017).  He is the principal author of FATA: A Most Dangerous Place (CSIS, Washington DC January 2009), Pakistan in the Danger Zone: A Tenuous US-Pakistan Relationship (Atlantic Council 2010), Learning by Doing: The Pakistan Army’s Experience with Counterinsurgency (Atlantic Council 2011), and with Mohan Guruswamy and with a Foreword by former Secretary of State George Shultz, India-Pakistan: The Opportunity Cost of Conflict (Atlantic Council 2014).  His book of verse in English Journeys was published originally by Oxford University Press and re-issued by Fort Hill in 2017. His second book of verse The Inner World (Archway 2017) is also available on the web.

Frank A. Rose

Monday, February 10, 2020

Topic: Outer Space: Cooperation or Confrontation?

Frank A. Rose is a senior fellow for security and strategy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.  He focuses on nuclear strategy and deterrence, arms control, strategic stability, missile defense, outer space, and emerging security challenges.  From 2017-18, he served as principal director and chief of government relations at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally-funded research and development center focused on national security space.

Mr. Rose served as assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance from 2014-17.  In this position, he was responsible for advising the secretary of state on a wide variety of arms control, strategic policy, verification, and compliance issues. From 2009 to 2014, he served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy where he was responsible for key issues related to arms control and defense policy including missile defense, space security, chemical and biological weapons, and conventional arms control.

Prior to joining the State Department in June 2009, Mr. Rose held various national security staff positions in the U.S. House of Representatives, including service as a professional staff member on both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  He has also held numerous positions within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, was as a national security analyst with Science Applications International Corporation and on the staff of U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA).

Mr. Rose received his bachelor’s degree in history from American University in 1994 and a master’s degree in war studies from Kings’ College, University of London in 1999. He is the recipient of numerous State Department, Defense Department and international awards.

Deborah Bronk

Monday, January 13, 2020

Topic: The Health of the World's Oceans

Dr. Deborah Bronk is the President and CEO of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.   As a researcher, she is fundamentally concerned about the health of aquatic systems, and especially the role of nitrogen.  Dr. Bronk’s work ranges from pioneering basic research into how organisms take up and produce nitrogen in the ocean to applied questions about the composition and removal of nitrogen in wastewater treatment plants.  She has led or participated in over 50 research expeditions from the Arctic to Antarctica, which were the basis for her paradigm-changing scholarship.

Dr. Bronk has a history of service to the aquatic science community and the nation.  In 2008, she was elected President of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), the largest international society devoted to the aquatic sciences.  From 2012-2015, she served at the National Science Foundation (NSF) ultimately as Director of the Division of Ocean Sciences.  As Division Director, Dr. Bronk oversaw a budget of $356M and was responsible for the core funding programs (Biological, Chemical, and Physical Oceanography, and Marine Geology and Geophysics), and ocean research facilities (the Ocean Observing Initiative, Ocean Drilling, and NSF use of the oceanographic research fleet).  She also co-chaired the Subcommittee of Ocean Science and Technology, which is composed of representative from the 24 federal agencies with links to ocean science.  In 2018, she served as the chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, an organization that represents over a million scientists across a broad range of disciplines in the US.

Dr. Bronk’s achievements have been recognized with many awards.  She is the recipient of the prestigious Lindeman Award, given annually by ASLO in recognition of the outstanding paper by a young aquatic scientist, the Antarctic Service Medal, from the US Armed Forces for service in Antarctica, the Dean’s Prize for the Advancement of Women in Science from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and the Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence from William & Mary.  In 2015, she was named a Sustaining Fellow of ASLO, and in 2016, she named her the Moses D. Nunnally Distinguished Professor of Marine Science.  In 2018, she received the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private universities.

Upcoming Speakers

  • April 8, 2024
    Ambassador Anne Hall
    Topic: The Baltics: Lessons in Courage
  • May 6, 2024
    Matt Goodwin
    Topic: Brexit, Trump, Le Pen and the Rise of National Populism
  • May 20, 2024
    Robert Einhorn
    Topic: Are We Heading Toward a World with Many Nuclear-armed States?
  • June 10, 2024
    Jack Goldsmith
    Topic: The Pros and Cons of Proposed Changes to the Israeli Court System

Past Speakers