“The Sweet Voice of Reason”
The Szilard Advisory Board (SAB) is composed of a select group of experts at the intersection of policy and politics dedicated to reducing the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
A project of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the SAB will add clear analysis, expert opinion, and insights based on experience to the public discourse on international security.
The Board is named after Leo Szilard, the founder of Council for a Livable World, the Center’s affiliated organization. His work to bring the “the sweet voice of reason” to the nuclear policy conversation is more important than ever today. In honoring his memory, the SAB will continue to push for new and better ways to advance arms control and nonproliferation goals.
Szilard Advisory Board Members:
Mark Appleton
Former Obama Administration Official and Congressional Staffer
Amb. Susan Flood Burk
Special Representative to President Obama on Nuclear Nonproliferation, with Ambassador rank
Anne Harrington
Former Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration
Newell Highsmith
Former Attorney, U.S. Department of State
Amb. Laura Kennedy
Retired Foreign Service Officer, World Affairs Council
Dr. Edward Levine
Former Senior Professional Staff on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee
Nick Miller
Assistant Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
Adam Mount
Senior Fellow, Federation of American Scientists
Dr. Megan Palmer
Senior Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University
Congressman John Tierney
Former Member of Congress, Executive Director, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
Dr. Jane Vaynman
Assistant Professor, Temple University
Moira Whelan
Partner, BlueDot Strategies
Dr. Heather Williams
Associate Professor, King’s College London
Jon Wolfsthal
Senior Advisor, Global Zero, Fellow, Carnegie Endowment and Harvard University
Mark Appleton
Mark Appleton has served in a variety of national security positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. Most recently, he served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, counseling him on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, as well as all matters related to national security, defense, and foreign affairs. He also managed the senator’s interests as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ranking member of its Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy.
Prior to his work in the U.S. Senate, Mark was an appointee in the administration of President Barack Obama. From late 2015 to 2017, he was an Assistant Coordinator for Iran Nuclear Implementation at the U.S. Department of State working on the team responsible for coordinating efforts across the United States government to implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed to by the P5+1, European Union, and Iran in July 2015. Before joining the State Department, Mark was a Special Advisor to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and a member of the U.S. delegation to the Iran nuclear negotiations resulting in the Lausanne Framework and the JCPOA. He also advised Secretary Moniz on a wide range of other energy and national security matters, including issues related to nuclear nonproliferation and the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Mark also served as a Special Assistant to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and first joined the Obama Administration as a White House intern in the spring of 2011.
Mr. Appleton graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University where he received his bachelor’s degree in history with honors and was a Fulbright-Nehru scholar in Delhi, India. He has also taken courses at the U.S. Army War College.
Ambassador Susan Flood Burk
Amb. Burk served as the special Representative of the President, Nuclear Nonproliferation with the rank of Ambassador, from 2009-2012, leading the U.S. preparations for and participation in the successful 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Over her more than 35 years of public service focused on United States’ nonproliferation, arms control and counterterrorism objectives, she has held a number of senior positions in both the State Department and the former U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACCDA). Burk served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Nonproliferation, and as Acting Assistant Secretary of in the Nonproliferation Bureau for 14 months. She was the first Deputy Coordinator for Homeland Security in the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. In ACDA, she headed the office that led the U.S. preparations for the successful 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
Since her retirement from federal service, she has been retained by the Department of Energy as a consultant on nuclear nonproliferation and NPT issues. She has continued to write and speak on these subjects. She serves on the Boards of the Herbert P. Scoville Peace Fellowships, the Arms Control Association, the Center of Concern and the State Department Senior Seminar Alumnae Association. She is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. She is an active member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and currently serves on the Board of AAUW of Virginia.
Mrs. Burk is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Trinity College, Washington, DC (B.A. 1976) and of Georgetown University (M.A. 1982).
Anne Harrington
Anne Harrington served as Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation in the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration from October 2010 to January 19, 2017, and was the longest-serving incumbent in that position. Main areas of focus included advancing global security through security or eliminating stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, advancing security of radiological sources, supporting development of technologies to advance nonproliferation and arms control, and cybersecurity of nuclear facilities. From 2005-2010, Ms. Harrington was the Director of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC). While at CISAC, she managed studies on a variety of nonproliferation, threat reduction and nuclear security issues, including: Global Security Engagement: A New Model for Cooperative Threat Reduction (2009); Future of the Nuclear Security Environment in 2015 (2009); Internationalization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Goals, Strategies, and Challenges (2008, joint report with Russian Academy of Sciences); and English-Chinese Chinese-English Nuclear Security Glossary (2008, produced jointly with the Chinese Scientists Group for Arms Control).
Ms. Harrington served for over 15 years in the U.S. Department of State, where she was Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction and a senior U.S. government expert on nonproliferation and cooperative threat reduction. She was pivotal in developing policy and implementing programs aimed at preventing the proliferation of WMD and missile expertise in Russia and Eurasia, and launched similar efforts Iraq and Libya. She was a primary negotiator for agreements that established the International Science and Technology Center and the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine, and the agreement between the United States and Kazakhstan for secure storage of spent fuel and safe shutdown of the Aktau BN-350 breeder reactor.
Ms. Harrington holds a B.A. from St. Lawrence University, a M.A. from the University of Michigan, and a M.S. from the National Defense University National War College. She is now principal at Harrington Consulting LLC.
Newell Highsmith
Newell Highsmith served for 30 years as an attorney at the U.S. Department of State with primary responsibility for legal issues related to arms control and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles. He was the Assistant Legal Adviser for Arms Control and Nonproliferation from 2002 to 2013 before taking on broader responsibilities as a Deputy Legal Adviser from 2013 to 2017. He served as primary or sole legal adviser on the U.S. delegations that negotiated:
· the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea;
· the 2008 Agreement for Nuclear Cooperation with India; and
· the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran.
In addition, he was directly involved in: analyzing the legal issues raised by Syria’s use of chemical weapons and its construction of a clandestine nuclear reactor; evaluating Russia’s violations of its arms control obligations; responding to Indian and Pakistani nuclear testing; facilitating Libya’s renunciation of weapons of mass destruction; establishing dual-use export controls in the Nuclear Suppliers Group; negotiating elements of the New START treaty with Russia; and responding to the revelations regarding Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. On an ongoing basis, he was responsible for the legal interpretation of numerous arms control and nonproliferation treaties and statutes, including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Statute of the IAEA, the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and a broad array of U.S. sanctions laws.
Newell Highsmith received a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an LL.M. in International Law from George Washington University Law School. Prior to joining the State Department, he worked in private practice for 3 years and was a Teaching Fellow at George Washington University Law School for 2 years. He is currently an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center (teaching “Nuclear Nonproliferation Law”) and has regularly written, spoken, and consulted on nuclear issues since retiring from the State Department in April 2017.
Ambassador Laura Kennedy
Amb. Laura Kennedy served almost four decades in the Foreign Service, including policy positions under both Republican and Democratic Presidents. Several tours in Moscow led to a career-long interest in arms control and non-proliferation. Kennedy took part in the Conventional Forces in Europe negotiations and returned to Vienna twice to serve as the Acting US Governor to the IAEA, most recently in 2014-15. She served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and as Ambassador twice, Turkmenistan (2001-3) and Geneva – Conference on Disarmament (2010-13), where she was concurrently the US Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Issues. In addition to the Szilard Advisory Board, Kennedy is a member of the Academy of Diplomacy, a Director of the World Affairs Council -DC, Foreign Policy for America, and the Arms Control Association.
Dr. Edward Levine
Dr. Edward Levine, chairman of the board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, is a retired senior professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he served from 1997 until 2011. He was a professional staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1976 until 1997.
Dr. Levine was the Foreign Relations Committee’s lead Democratic specialist on arms control, nonproliferation, and U.S arms sales to other countries. He played a major staff role in the Senate’s consideration of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the Moscow Treaty, the New START Treaty, protocols to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, conventions relating to nuclear safety, arms sale agreements with the United Kingdom and Australia, and the U.S.-India nuclear agreement. He also helped to oversee and to maintain funding for U.S. nonproliferation programs and U.S. contributions to the IAEA and the CTBTO Preparatory Commission.
Dr. Levine served both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. One of his roles was to write or co-author the committee’s assessments of U.S capabilities to monitor compliance with SALT II, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the Threshold Test-Ban Treaty and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Prior to working for the U.S. Senate, Dr. Levine taught political science at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and at Rice University. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of California (Berkeley) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations from Yale University.
Nick Miller
Nicholas Miller is an Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. His research focuses on nuclear weapons, US nonproliferation policy, and international security. Miller’s book, Stopping the Bomb: The Sources and Effectiveness of US Nonproliferation Policy, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press. His articles have been published in a variety of scholarly journals, and his commentary on public affairs has appeared at ForeignPolicy.com, The National Interest, and The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. Miller received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT, where he is a research affiliate of the Security Studies Program. In 2016-2017, Miller was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. From 2014 to 2017, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brown University.
Adam Mount
In 2015-16, he directed the CFR Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward North Korea, a group of seventeen experts chaired by Adm. Mike Mullen and Sen. Sam Nunn. Their report, A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia issued ten findings and six recommendations for the next president’s policy toward the regime. Previously worked as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress covering nuclear strategy and force structure, global nuclear politics, deterrence, and North Korea. Previously, he was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Congressman John Tierney
Former Congressman John Tierney is the Executive Director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, where his work focuses on national security issues in Congress, nuclear nonproliferation, missile defense, and other areas of peace and security. Tierney is a former nine-term Massachusetts congressman who served on the House Intelligence Committee and chaired the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. During his congressional career, Tierney spent considerable time advocating on nuclear non-proliferation and national security issues. His 18-year career included oversight of the Government Accountability Office’s annual assessment of the Pentagon’s Weapons Selection Programs and reform of overall Pentagon spending.
Jane Vaynman
Dr. Jane Vaynman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University. She was previously the Associate Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies and Research Assistant Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.
Jane’s work focuses on security cooperation between adversarial states, the design of arms control agreements, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Previously, she was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and has also held positions with the U.S. Department of State and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was a recipient of a Fulbright fellowship for research in Russia, and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She received her PhD in political science from Harvard University and BA in International Relations from Stanford University. Jane is fluent in Russian.
Moira Whelan
Moira Whelan is an entrepreneur and partner at BlueDot Strategies. She is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Digital Strategy with more than 15 years of experience in national security communications. She has served in senior communications roles at the State Department, US Agency for International Development, the Department of Homeland Security and in the House of Representatives. She has also helped advance the policy conversation as a founding staff member of the National Security Network and at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Washington Board of the Digital Diplomacy Coalition.
Heather Williams
Dr. Heather Williams is a Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Centre for Science and Security Studies and Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, where her research focuses on strategic stability, arms control, and the nuclear ban treaty. Previously she was a Research Fellow at Chatham House where she led projects on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons initiative and nuclear risks. She received her PhD in 2014 from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London on trust-building in US-Russia arms control. Heather is also an adjunct research staff member with the Institute for Defense Analyses, which she joined in 2008. She has a BA in International Relations and Russian Studies from Boston University and an MA in Security Policy Studies from the George Washington University. She is on the board of directors of the British-American Security Information Council (BASIC), the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) UK, and the Non-Proliferation Review. Her most recent publication is “The Nuclear Education of Donald J. Trump”, with Jeffrey Michaels, published in Contemporary Security Policy, and her forthcoming book is titled A Call to Arms Control: Trust in US-Russia Nuclear Negotiations.
Jon Wolfsthal
Wolfsthal is a former special assistant to the President for National Security and senior director for Non-Proliferation and arms control at the national Security Council under President Obama. Globally recognized expert on all issues related to nuclear weapons, arms control, nonproliferation, and nuclear strategy. Former Deputy Director of the Nonproliferation Centers at Middlebury College and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
