Please note that this event is now webinar only

In this seminar, three presenters from Google Health will share their perspectives on what it takes to bring a medical AI product from “code to clinic” in Southeast Asia. Google Health’s mission is to help everyone, everywhere be healthier, applying cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to improve patient outcomes and care delivery and incubate new AI-based products from initial research to clinical deployment. Representing different facets of a multidisciplinary team of experts (Product, Partnerships, and Program Management), the presenters will discuss the journey of developing and deploying a diagnostic AI solution that addresses an unmet need for the detection of diabetic blindness in Southeast Asia, real-world challenges and opportunities (particularly in the context of low- and middle-income countries), and the importance of building strategic partnerships and trust.

Richa Tiwari's work focuses on driving research on Google’s health innovations and working with partners on real-world deployment of digital and AI solutions in APAC and Africa. Richa holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and has over a decade of experience in Pharma, bringing cancer treatments to market and running clinical trials. An accidental technologist and a scientist at heart, Richa is passionate about bringing forward cutting-edge health tech innovations to address healthcare challenges

Sunny Virmani, during his time at Google and Verily Life Sciences, has focused on translating machine learning research into real-world clinical applications working with key opinion leaders and partners globally. His team’s pioneering research in the field of diabetic retinopathy screening using machine learning has helped advance the technology in this field significantly. Previously, he has held Product Management positions at Carl Zeiss Meditec and Philips Healthcare building products in the field of medical imaging. By education, he is an engineer with a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering.

Rajroshan Sawhney leads Partnerships for Google Research (Health AI & Sustainability). During his time at Google, Raj has focused on catalyzing the adoption of human-centered AI in healthcare by driving strategic partnerships across both public and private sector in APAC, working closely with regulators, policy makers and academic partners to improve health outcomes in low-resource environments, and to develop go-to-market strategies to graduate research into real-world deployments.  Prior to Google, Raj was the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Corporate Development at a leading Computer Vision startup based out of San Francisco and Singapore. Raj holds a Computer Science BE (Hons) degree from BITS-Pilani, is a member of Mensa International and the India Young Leaders Forum.

About the Event: In the last few years, a number of analysts have warned that we may be on the brink of a more proliferated world, as the security environment deteriorates, concerns about U.S. reliability as a protector are on the rise, hostility between the great powers grows, and the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) seems to be under increasing stress. These fears were supercharged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which appeared to demonstrate that nuclear weapons can facilitate conquest and that giving them up—as Ukraine did in the early 1990s—exposes states to terrible predation. How worried should we be about the nuclear club expanding in the coming decade? Drawing on lessons from nuclear history, I argue that while proliferation risks are growing, they are significantly more manageable than many analysts suggest. And while the odds of proliferation are increasing in both East Asia and the Middle East, we should be significantly more concerned about the latter.

About the Speaker: Nicholas L. Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Miller’s research focuses primarily on the causes and consequences of nuclear weapons proliferation. His book, Stopping the Bomb: The Sources and Effectiveness of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy, was published by Cornell University Press in 2018. His work has also been published in a wide variety of scholarly journals, including the American Political Science Review, International Organization, and International Security, as well popular outlets like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and War on the Rocks. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the Event: Nuclear deterrence assumes that state leaders are able to assess the costs, benefits, and consequences of any decision to use nuclear weapons.  Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy presupposes that, in a crisis, the president will rationally assess how to respond to the threat of an incoming nuclear attack.  Using a virtual reality simulation, we conducted an experiment and two controlled observations of decision making in a nuclear crisis.  The results call into question the degree to which any U.S. president is likely to conform to the basic expectations of rational decision making when confronted with an incoming nuclear strike.

About the Speaker: Sharon K. Weiner is an Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University as well as a Visiting Researcher for the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University. Sharon's research, teaching, and policy engagement are at the intersection of organizational politics and U.S. national security. Her current work focuses on the theory, practice, and social construction of deterrence, the politics of U.S. nuclear weapon modernization programs, and larger issues of civil-military relations. Her most recent book, Managing the Military: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Civil-Military Relations (Columbia University Press, 2022) analyzes the power of the JCS chairman to help or hinder the president's ability to implement their defense policy preferences.  She also collaborates with Moritz Kutt (Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg) on The Nuclear Biscuit (thenuclearbiscuit.org), a virtual reality experience involving a nuclear crisis. The project analyses how people make high stakes national security decisions under conditions of uncertainty.  She is currently on leave from American University and is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Speaker: Daphne Richemond-Barak, assistant professor; Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy, Reichman University, Israel

From the first World War to Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Gaza, underground warfare has always represented one of the deadliest and most complicated combat environments. Israel went into the current war possessing the most advanced military capabilities in detection, mapping, and destruction of tunnels, yet this neither deterred Hamas from digging or lessened the challenge of subterranean fighting.

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Daphne Richemond-Barak is an assistant professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, and serves as the Academic Head of the International Program in Government (RRIS) and as Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT). She is also an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a senior fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare, also at West Point. In 2019, her book 'Underground Warfare' was awarded the Prize Chaikin by the Chair in Geostrategy at the University of Haifa for its contribution to the geostrategy of Israel and the Middle East.

Dr. Richemond-Barak holds a Maitrise from Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), a Diploma in Legal Studies from Oxford University (Hertford College), an LL.M. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. She was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship, and was a recipient of the European Commission Scholarship, the Hertford College Prize, and the Oxford Prize for Distinction. Prior to joining the IDC, Dr. Richemond-Barak served as a clerk at the International Court of Justice, and worked as an attorney in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb.
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker: Tamar Hermann, academic director, The Viterbi Family Center, The Israel Democracy Institute, Israel

What do public opinion surveys reveal to us about political preferences in Israel? Has the Gaza War led to shifts in those preferences, and if so, how? And who is likely to win the next national elections in Israel? In this webinar, one of Israel’s most prominent public opinion experts, Tamar Hermann, presents and analyzes the latest data.

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Professor Tamar Hermann is a Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and the Academic Director of the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research. The Center documents the attitudes of the Israeli public across a broad range of issues: politics, culture, ideology, religion, education and national security. Since 2010, Prof. Hermann has headed the team which develops and produces the annual Israeli Democracy Index, and since 2018 – the monthly Israeli Voice Index. Prof. Herman is a Professor of Political Science at the Open University in Israel.
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S. and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker: Yaniv Roznai, associate professor and vice-dean, Harry Radzyner Law School; co-director, Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges, Reichman University, Israel 

What can courts do when confronted with executives and legislators prepared to violate basic constitutional norms or seek to undermine democracy through constitutional amendments? Are there situations in which courts need to step in to prevent “abusive constitutionalism”? In this webinar Larry Diamond and Amichai Magen talk with Yaniv Roznai about Israel’s Supreme Court’s dramatic recent decisions.

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Yaniv Roznai is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at the Harry Radzyner Law School, and C0-director at the Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges, Reichman University. He holds a PhD and LL.M (Distinction) from The London School of Economics (LSE), and LLB and BA degrees (magna cum laude) in Law and Government from the IDC, Herzliya (now Reichman University). Roznai's scholarship focuses on comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, legisprudence, and public international law. He is the author of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments – The Limit of Amendment Powers (Oxford University Press, 2017).
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S. and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker: Danielle Gilbert, assistant professor of political science, Northwestern University

Israel has a long and troubled history responding to hostage crises, but the nature and scale of Hamas’s hostage taking on October 7th is unprecedented. In this webinar, Danielle Gilbert will discuss the long history of hostage taking in war, the evolution of hostage diplomacy, and what lessons can be drawn from the current hostage crisis in Gaza.

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Danielle Gilbert’s research explores the causes and consequences of hostage taking, including projects on rebel kidnapping, hostage recovery policy, and hostage diplomacy. Following Hamas’s October 7th attack, she published the essay: “Why the Gaza Hostage Crisis Is Different.” In 2023, she was selected to serve on the Bipartisan Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) In Washington, DC. Before embarking on an academic career, she served four years on Capitol Hill including as a Senior Legislative Assistant and Appropriations Associate, and she worked as a policy advisor on presidential and congressional campaigns.
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S. and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker: Mohammed Darawshe, director of strategy at the Shared Society Center, Givat Haviva Educational Center, Galilee, Israel

When Hamas perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history on October 7th 2023, it targeted not only Jews, but also Israeli Arabs. Among those killed by Hamas on October 7th was Awad Darawsheh, a 23 year-old paramedic, who was working at the Nova Music Festival, when the terrorists struck. In this webinar, Larry Diamond and Amichai Magen talk with Awad’s first cousin, Mohammed Darawshe, about the impact of October 7th and the subsequent war on Israeli Arabs and the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

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Mohammed Darawshe is the Director of Strategy at the Shared Society Center of the Givat Haviva Educational Center in the Galilee, and a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is widely consulted as a leading expert on Jewish-Arab relations. He previously served as Co-Director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives and as Elections Campaign Manager for the Democratic Arab Party and later The United Arab List. He was the recipient of the Peacemakers Award from the Catholic Theological Union, and the Peace and Security Award of the World Association of NGO’s, and was Leadership Fellow at the New Israel Fund. In 2008, Mohammed Darawshe was elected as a city council member in his hometown Iksal. In 2009 he served as a member of The National Committee which drafted Israel’s Coexistence Education policy.
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S. and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker: Haviv Rettig Gur, senior analyst for The Times of Israel 

2023 will be remembered as Israel’s year of horrors. It began with deep societal polarization, mass protests, and anxiety about the future of Israeli democracy, following the new Netanyahu government’s plan to weaken judicial independence. It ended with the most devastating terrorist attack in Israel’s history and a war that is now being fought on multiple fronts. In this webinar, Amichai Magen, FSI's visiting fellow in Israel Studies, will be joined by one of Israel’s leading analysts, Haviv Rettig Gur, to take stock of 2023 and seek to ascertain what awaits Israel in 2024.

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A veteran Israeli-American journalist and analyst, Haviv Rettig Gur serves as The Times of Israel’s Senior Analyst. He has reported from over 20 countries and served as director of communications for the Jewish Agency for Israel, Israel’s largest NGO. Haviv lectures on Israeli politics, the U.S.-Israel relationship, the peace process, modern Jewish history and identity, and Israel-diaspora relations.
 

During the 2024 winter quarter (January-March) FSI's Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program is hosting a series of webinars exploring various aspects of contemporary Israeli politics, societal and security challenges. Webinars will take place on Wednesdays, 10:00-11:15am PST (20:00-21:15pm, Israel Time). Each webinar will feature a guest speaker from Israel or the U.S. and will include a lecture or moderated conversation with the guest, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

About the Event: During the Second World War, U.S. and British military figures feared that Nazi Germany was pursuing a program to produce weapons that dispersed radiological material without a nuclear detonation. Although mistaken in their assessment, both countries in the postwar period launched their own radiological weapons (RW) programs, as did the Soviet Union. Death Dust explores the largely unknown history of the rise and demise of RW—sometimes portrayed as a “poor man’s nuclear weapon”—through a series of comparative case studies across the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Egypt, and Iraq.  The authors draw on newly available archival material and interview data to illuminate the drivers of and impediments to radiological weapons innovation.  They also examine how new, dire circumstances, such as the war in Ukraine, might encourage other states to pursue RW and analyze the impact of the spread of such weapons on nuclear deterrence and the nonproliferation regime. They conclude by offering practical steps to reduce the likelihood of a resurgence of interest in and pursuit of radiological weapons by state actors.

About the Speakers: 

Sarah Bidgood is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in the MIT Security Studies Program. Prior to this, she served as Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. Her work focuses on U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Russian arms control, risk reduction, and nonproliferation cooperation, as well as the nonproliferation regime more broadly. Her research and analysis have been published in journals such as International Security, the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, and The Nonproliferation Review, as well as outlets including Foreign Policy, Arms Control Today, War on the Rocks, and The National Interest. Sarah is a coauthor of the forthcoming book, Death Dust: The Rise, Decline, and Future of Radiological Weapons Programs, which will be published by Stanford University Press in December 2023. She is also the coeditor of Once and Future Partners: The United States, Russia, and Nuclear Non-proliferation (London, UK: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2018). Sarah received her BA in Russian from Wellesley College. She holds an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an MA with distinction in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is a PhD candidate in Defense Studies at King’s College London, where her dissertation focuses on the relationship between Cold War nuclear crises and arms control.

Hanna Notte is the director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) and a senior associate (non-resident) with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Notte holds a doctorate and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University. Her expertise is on Russian foreign policy, the Middle East, and arms control and nonproliferation. Her writings have appeared in the Nonproliferation Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and War on the Rocks, among others.

William Potter is Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and Founding Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at MIIS.  He is the author, co-author, or editor of over 20 books. Dr. Potter has served on committees of the US National Academy of Sciences and is a past member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. He has participated as a delegate at every NPT Review Conference and Preparatory Committee meeting since 1995. He is the recipient of the 2021 Therese Delpech Memorial Award.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.