Philip Coyle is a recognized expert on U.S. and worldwide military research, development and testing, on operational military matters, and on national security policy and defense spending, including defense acquisition reform and defense procurement. He also has extensive background in missile defense, in military space systems, and in high-technology weapons, such as high power lasers and other directed-energy weapons.

From Sept. 29, 1994, through Jan. 20 2001, Coyle was assistant secretary of defense and director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in the Department of Defense, and he is the longest serving director in the 20-year history of the office. In this capacity, he was the principal advisor to the secretary of defense on test and evaluation at DoD.

Appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the 2005 Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission, Coyle is currently serving on that commission, and was nominated for this position by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Coyle has 40 years experience in research, development, and testing matters. From 1959 to 1979, and again from 1981 to 1993, he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. From 1987 to 1993, he served as laboratory associate director and deputy to the laboratory director. In recognition of his 33 years service to the laboratory and to the University of California, the university named him laboratory associate director emeritus.

Coyle graduated from Dartmouth College with an MS in mechanical engineering (1957) and a BA (1956). His wife, Dr. Martha Krebs, was assistant secretary of energy and director of the office of science from 1993 to 2000, and was the founding director of the new California NanoSystems Institute, a research partnership between UCLA and U.C. Santa Barbara. They have four grown children and four grandchildren, and live in Los Angeles.

Matthew Rojansky is a JD candidate at Stanford Law School and a CISAC predoctoral fellow. His research focuses on international law and security, counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation. He is currently conducting a study of UN Security Council legitimacy in the global counter-terrorism context, and developing a theory of network-based attribution for internationally wrongful acts. He has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and private law firms, where he has worked on international trade and IP litigation.

He received an AB in Soviet history from Harvard University. Next year, he will serve as a clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Kent Eaton is Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. A political scientist by training, Dr. Eaton is interested in political institutions and comparative political economy. He is the author of Politicians and Economic Reform in New Democracies and Politics beyond the Capital: The Design of Subnational Institutions in South America. Currently Dr. Eaton is conducting research on police reform and on the relationship between decentralization and security in Latin America.

The Stanford Association for International Development (SAID) and the Stanford Graduate School of Business International Development Club (GSB-ID) will be hosting its fourth annual conference. Each year, SAID and the GSB-ID collaborate to bring together relevant experts, academics, and practitioners from NGOs, government agencies and international institutions across the country to speak on critical issues in development. Drawing over 200 students, faculty and community members each year, the conference aims to promote and share knowledge about effective and innovative approaches to development and to inspire student interest in the field. This year, the conference will address approaches to education in developing countries, focusing in particular on the challenges to creating effective educational systems and funding allocation to different education priorities.

In the past, the conference has also included a lunchtime development fair with Bay Area-based NGOs to provide interested students with job, internship or volunteering opportunities, as well as real-life perspectives on working in international development. This year, the fair will be expanded to include not only NGOs but also development-related student groups on campus. Hopefully, this will be an opportunity for students looking for a way to get involved "closer to home" and to strengthen the ties among the growing development community at Stanford.

Speakers from USAID, World Bank, Global Fund for Children, the Hewlett Foundation, and more.

Sponsored by Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, ASSU, VPUE, ASSU Speakers Bureau, GSB Global Management Program, GSB Center for Global Business and Economy, Economics Dept., and the OSA.

Poverty, inequality, and corruption plague the Philippines six decades after independence. Of the past five presidents, only one took office and left it without military intervention, and he was a general. In his controversial book, A Country of Our Own (2004), David Martinez describes the Philippines as a failed state. The country in his eyes comprises five regions ("nations"): Cordillera, Luzon, The Visayas, Mindanao, and Bangsamoro. He proposes holding legally binding referenda in each of these places to determine whether those who live there wish to remain inside the Philippines or form their own independent country. In a conversation moderated by Stanford's Don Emmerson, Martinez and the Filipinist scholar Lela Noble will examine arguments and evidence relevant to a crucial question: Is the nation-state project still valid for the Philippines?

David C. Martinez was born in the Philippines. At law school in Silliman University he was a medal-winning debater. He became an activist lawyer, was briefly detained when then-President Marcos declared martial law, fled the Philippines, and eventually reached the US, where he now resides. His essays have appeared in the Philippines Free Press among other publications, and he is a prize-winning author of fiction and poetry as well.

Lela Noble has written extensively on the Philippines. Her authored or edited books include Organizing for Democracy: NGOs, Civil Society, and the Philippine State (1998); Philippine Policy toward Sabah: A Claim to Independence (1977), and her articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey and Solidarity. From 1996 to 2002, she was dean of the College of Social Sciences at San Jose State. Her PhD is from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.