Ambassador Ruth Davis: Foreign Service Should Look Like America ...

FacultyNotes
Biological and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Expert Christopher Chyba to Join WWS
The School has announced
that Christopher Chyba,
noted astrophysicist and
expert on biological and
nuclear weapons nonproliferation,
joined the Princeton faculty as of July
2005. In addition to his School faculty
appointment as a professor of astrophysics
and international affairs, Chyba
will initially co-direct and ultimately
lead the WWS Program on Science and
Global Security. Chyba has been codirecting
Stanford University’s Center
for International Security and
Cooperation, where he was an associate
professor of geological and environmental
sciences, and held the Carl
Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the
Universe at the SETI Institute in
Mountain View, California.
Chyba serves on the National Academy
of Sciences’ Committee for
International Security and Arms
Control, the National Research Council
(NRC) of the National Academies’
Committee on Advances in Technology
and the Prevention of Their Application
to Next-Generation Biowarfare Threats,
and the Monterey Nonproliferation
Strategy Group. He also chairs the
NRC’s Committee on Preventing the
Forward Contamination of Mars, and is
co-director of the Princeton Project on
National Security’s Relative Threat
Assessment Working Group.
His security-related research focuses on
nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons
policy, and biological terrorism. Chyba’s
planetary science and astrobiology
research focuses on the search for life
elsewhere in the solar system. In
October 2001, he was named a
MacArthur Fellow for his work in
astrobiology and international security.
He has lectured and written widely on
bioweapons and biosecurity threats, as
well as nuclear smuggling networks and
nuclear weapons policy.
12 Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Christopher Chyba will be a professor of
astrophysical sciences and international
affairs and co-direct the Program on Science
and Global Security.
Professor Frank von Hippel, who with
Harold Feiveson MPA ’63, PhD ’72,
has co-directed the WWS Program on
Science and Global Security since its
inception as Princeton’s Program on
Nuclear Policy Alternatives in 1974,
welcomed Chyba’s appointment: “My
hope is that this program will continue
for many years to help students and
post-doctoral scientists from around the
world contribute to improving policies
for controlling nuclear and biological
weapons,” von Hippel said. “Chris’s
willingness to co-direct and, in a year or
two, take over the program makes this
hope much more realistic.”
Feiveson added: “We are especially
pleased that Chris’s engagement with
and expertise in issues of biosecurity
will immediately strengthen the program’s
rapidly growing research in this
area.”
Photo courtesy of SETI
“Chris is an outstanding addition to
the faculty and his appointment will
greatly augment as well as highlight
the cutting-edge research already
being conducted at the Program on
Science and Global Security,” said
WWS Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter.
“He is one of the nation’s top experts
on biosecurity, particularly
bioweapons, as well as nuclear nonproliferation,
and his research and
teaching expertise in science and
security issues will provide invaluable
benefits to our students, especially
given his policy experience.”
Chyba served on the White House
staff from 1993 to 1995, entering as
a White House Fellow, working on
the National Security Council staff,
and then in the National Security
Division of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy. As a consultant after
leaving the White House, Chyba drafted
President Clinton’s directive on
responding to emerging infectious diseases,
and authored a report on preparing
for biological terrorism. In 1996, he
received the Presidential Early Career
Award, “for demonstrating exceptional
potential for leadership at the frontiers
of science and technology during the
21st century.” He chaired the Science
Definition Team for NASA’s Europa
Orbiter mission, a mission to search for
an ocean beneath the icy crust of
Jupiter’s moon Europa, and served on
the executive committee of NASA’s
Space Science Advisory Committee, for
which he chaired the Solar System
Exploration Subcommittee.
A graduate of Swarthmore College,
Chyba studied as a Marshall Scholar at
Cambridge University and received his
Ph.D. in planetary science from Cornell
University in 1991.