Biological forensics has made considerable strides in the past decade, in part, due to advances in DNA analysis and, in part, due to advances other microscopic diagnostic techniques such as atomic force microscopy to analyze structural properties of microorganisms and secondary-ion mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical constituents of microorganisms. This talk will cover recent advances in the field of microbial forensics with application to potential bioterror attacks, excluding investigations that currently are ongoing.

Paul Jackson is the forensics group leader within the Biosciences Directorate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and, prior to that, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Jackson is currently a member of the FBI Working Group for Forensic Analysis of Microbial Evidence. His past research has involved analyses of anthrax samples from the 1979 anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, Russia, and the 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States. His current research focuses on genetic typing methods applied to biological toxins such as Ricin. He received his BS from the University of Washington and his PhD from the University of Utah.

The speaker will describe his experiences over ten years of developing a comprehensive program to engage the formerly top secret Soviet biological weapons complex through joint scientific research and disease surveillance. He will also discuss how lessons learned can be applied to potential new efforts to reduce global threats of bioterrorism and potential pandemics.

Andrew Weber is the adviser for cooperative threat reduction policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. His responsibilities include developing and overseeing CTR biological threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union, and nuclear and chemical weapons threat reduction projects in Central Asia. Before coming to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 1996, Weber served as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Hong Kong. Weber holds an MSFS degree from Georgetown University and a BA from Cornell University. He speaks Russian. Weber is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service.

Santiago Levy is a Mexican economist and former General Director of the Mexican Social Security Institute. As director of the Institute, he championed pension reform and extended social security coverage to rural workers. Prior to that, Levy was Chief economist and head of the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (2001 - 2002). From 1994 to 2000, he was Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Finance in Mexico, where he was the force behind Progresa-Oportunidades, Mexico's widely acclaimed incentive-based health, nutrition and education program for the poor.

Levy has taught at Boston University, where he was the Chair of the Economics Department. He has published a number of books and numerous academic and newspaper articles on economic development, budgetary and tax policy, trade policy reform, social policy, rural and regional development.

Santiago Levy obtained his, B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Boston University.

Prior to taking the helm at the Korea Society in New York City, Revere spent 35 years in government service, capped by a long career as a U.S. diplomat and one of the Department of State's leading Asia experts.

Most recently, Revere spent time as the Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies on a State Department assignment to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR.) At CFR, he served as project director for the Council's Task Force on U.S. policy towards China and also helped launch a new CFR study on Asia-Pacific regional security.

During his career at the State Department, Evans served as principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, managing U.S. relations with the Asia-Pacific region and leading an organization of 950 American diplomats and some 2,500 Foreign Service National employees. He also served as charge d'affairs and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and as the deputy chief of the U.S. team conducting negotiations with North Korea. He is a three-time winner of the Department of State's Superior Honor Award.

This talk will discuss the study of a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. However, while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.

About the speaker:

Philip Keeferis a Lead Research Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. Since receiving his PhD in Economics from Washington University at St. Louis in 1991, he has worked continuously on the interaction of institutions, political economy and economic development on issues ranging from the impact of insecure property rights on economic growth to the effect of political credibility on the fiscal and monetary policy choices of governments. His work has appeared in journals ranging from the Quarterly Journal of Economics to the American Review of Political Science.