About the Speaker 

Chunling Lu studied international relations (BA) and political science (MA) at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and sociology (MA) and applied statistics (MS) at Syracuse University, where she also received her PhD in economics. She received postdoctoral training on health care policy analysis at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, and joined the School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in 2008 after three years as Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Institute for Global Health.

EVENT PARTNERS

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About the speaker: Rachel Metz is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. Metz’s research and teaching focus on international security, security assistance and security cooperation, military effectiveness, nuclear strategy, and methods for studying military operations. Her book project examines the United States’ approach to building militaries in partner states, and her research has been published in International Organization, International Security, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, H-Diplo, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, The National Interest, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.

Metz received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a member of the Security Studies Program. Her work has received funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation, Defense Security Cooperation University, and the Carnegie Corporation. Previously, Metz was a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, an adjunct researcher for the RAND Corporation, and a Eurasia Group Fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. Metz is a research affiliate at MIT.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

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María Ignacia Curiel is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Research Affiliate of the Poverty, Violence and Governance Lab at Stanford University. Curiel is an empirical political scientist using experimental, observational, and qualitative data to study questions of violence and democratic participation, peacebuilding, and representation.

Her research primarily explores political solutions to violent conflict and the electoral participation of parties with violent origins. This work includes an in-depth empirical study of Comunes, the Colombian political party formed by the former FARC guerrilla, as well as a broader analysis of rebel party behaviors across different contexts. More recently, her research has focused on democratic mobilization and the political representation of groups affected by violence in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Hector Fuentes is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. His research focuses on Venezuelan elections, exploring the dynamics that led to this semi-competitive election, analyzing the strategic successes of the opposition, and identifying windows of opportunity for fostering a transition to democracy in Venezuela.

Dorothy Kronick is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley. She studies contemporary Latin American politics, focusing on Venezuelan politics and the politics of crime and policing. Her work has been published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Science, and Science Advances, among other outlets. Her commentary on Venezuelan politics has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Harold Trinkunas is a Senior Research Scholar and the Deputy Director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work has examined civil-military relations, ungoverned spaces, terrorist financing, emerging power dynamics, and global governance.

Diego A. Zambrano is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Global Programs at Stanford Law School, specializing in the areas of civil litigation and comparative law. He is also the faculty director of the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law and Faculty Affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University. 

Alberto Diaz-Cayeros joined the FSI faculty in 2013 after serving for five years as the director of the Center for US-Mexico studies at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D at Duke University in 1997. He was an assistant professor of political science at Stanford from 2001-2008, before which he served as an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Diaz-Cayeros has also served as a researcher at Centro de Investigacion Para el Desarrollo, A.C. in Mexico from 1997-1999. His work has focused on federalism, poverty and violence in Latin America, and Mexico in particular. He has published widely in Spanish and English. His book Federalism, Fiscal Authority and Centralization in Latin America was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 (reprinted 2016). His latest book (with Federico Estevez and Beatriz Magaloni) is: The Political Logic of Poverty Relief Electoral Strategies and Social Policy in Mexico. His work has primarily focused on federalism, poverty and economic reform in Latin America, and Mexico in particular, with more recent work addressing crime and violence, youth-at-risk, and police professionalization. He currently serves as the co-director of the Democracy Action Lab at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDRRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI).

About the event: The threat of illicit nuclear and other radioactive materials poses a risk to international security. The analysis of post-Soviet disintegration cases of illicit trafficking suggests that those incidents were mostly opportunistic thefts resulting from a weakened security system and/or lack of strict oversight. With the growing threat of global terrorism and the emergence of various terrorist networks across the world, however, the focus has shifted to the probability of a terrorist outfit gaining access to these deadly weapons and materials, especially in South Asia. In that regard, the study identifies the role of a nuclear security regime in mitigating the risks arising from the threat of illicit trafficking incidents. It identifies a distinct nuclear security regime under the regime theory and seeks its application in a regional framework in the South Asian context. It assesses the nuclear security norms and practices of India and Pakistan and proposes a template of a regional cooperative mechanism that can be built upon the principles, norms, rules, and procedures of the nuclear security regime. The template is tailored according to the regional environment in South Asia and it has practical features that range from some ideal approaches to more realistic measures. In that regard, the proposed nuclear security regime seeks to de-securitize the nuclear security debate, which in turn, will facilitate framing nuclear security cooperation as a mutual interest and nuclear security risks as common threats even among the competitive states.

About the speaker: Sitara Noor is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Stanford University, California. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science in July 2025 from University of Vienna. Her research interests include nuclear security, non-proliferation, and strategic stability, with a particular focus on South Asia. She was formerly a Managing the Atom Fellow at Belfer Center from 2022 to 2024. In 2023, she was a Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome. She also held the position of Research Fellow at VCDNP in Vienna, Austria, during 2016-2017. Earlier in her career, she worked as an International Relations Analyst at Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (2008 to 2015).

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

About the speaker: Lisa Langdon Koch is Associate Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, specializing in international relations. She is the author of Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs (Oxford University Press, 2023), which won the Robert Jervis Best International Security Book Award. She has published numerous articles on topics like nuclear proliferation and foreign policy. Her research has been funded by the Stanton Foundation Nuclear Security Grant Program and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 2023, Koch received the Glenn R. Huntoon Award for Superior Teaching. She is a 2000 Harry S. Truman Scholar.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. Their descendants endowed the annual lecture series at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking; a broad, practical grasp of a given field; and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.

About the speaker: Jill Hruby served as the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the Department of Energy from 2021 to 2025. Prior to that, Hruby had a 34-year career at Sandia National Laboratories, retiring as the Director in 2017. Hruby was the inaugural Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow at NTI. Currently, Hruby is on boards at Lawrence Livermore and the Atomic Weapon Establishment. She is a member of the Anthropic National Security Advisory Committee, the National Academy Committee for International Security and Arms Control, among other advisory roles. This quarter, she is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.