Visit our website and events calendar for a complete listing of spring 2015 activities. Many of our events are captured on video and available to view on YouTube.

Turkey's New Global Activism

CIS organized a three-day workshop in Istanbul, April 12-14, to assess Turkey's new global role and its application of hard and soft power in its region. Hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the workshop brought together scholars and practitioners from Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, including leading Turkish intellectuals and officials. Along with CIS executive director John Tirman, the meeting was shaped by Professor Mario Zucconi (Princeton), Professor Kristin Fabbe (Claremont McKenna), who recently earned a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, and Michael Meier of the Ebert Foundation. Presentations were also made in Ankara to the diplomatic corps, and will be forthcoming in Washington, D.C., Brussels, and Berlin. The workshop prompted considerable coverage in Turkey, and the organizers expect further engagement.

Nuclear Security Fellows Program

With the support of the Stanton Foundation, the Security Studies Program has launched a Nuclear Security Fellows Program for junior faculty as well as pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholars. The Nuclear Security Fellows Program seeks to stimulate the development of the next generation of thought leaders in nuclear security by supporting research that will advance policy-relevant understanding of the subject. Fellows are expected to produce policy-relevant research, including book manuscripts, draft articles, dissertations, chapters in edited volumes, or reports. Nuclear security is defined broadly to include nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation, nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrine and force structure, nuclear energy as it relates to nuclear security, and other topics that involve nuclear security.

Starr Forums

The Center's spring Starr Forums included the following topics: Arab Spring and its Impact on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, with Leila Farsakh and Anat Biletski; Revisiting Port Huron with Tom Hayden and Noam Chomsky; A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran featuring Trita Parsi, Abbas Maleki, and Stephen Kinzer; and a photo exhibit "Libya: Armed Conflict and its Aftermath," displaying the works of war photographer Michael Brown. Starr Forums and videos>>

IUCIM and CIS Honor Sharon Stanton Russell

Sharon Stanton Russell, a mainstay of migration studies at MIT and the Inter-University Committee on International Migration, was honored with a IUCIM symposium and dinner on February 7 at CIS. Russell, who had a long association with the late CIS director Myron Weiner, a leading migration theorist, has been a leader of IUCIM for fifteen years. She has made major contributions to migration studies, including pioneering work on remittances for the World Bank. Among other works, she was co-editor with Weiner of Demography and National Security. Russell has also had long associations with the University of Sussex, the United Nations, and the National Academy of Sciences. The Feb 7 symposium featured presentations by six Committee members: Karen Jacobsen (Tufts), Nazli Choucri (MIT), Robert Lucas (Boston U.), Peggy Levitt (Wellesley), John Harris (Boston U.), and Luise Druke (Harvard Law School). Michael Teitelbaum, another collaborator on cutting edge research with Russell, led a number of accolades at the dinner. 

MISTI Adds MIT Korea and MIT Russia

Working with a network of leading companies and universities, MISTI connects students with select hands-on professional and research internships around the globe. The two newest country programs are MIT Korea and MIT Russia. To help make an international experience available to every MIT student, MISTI internships are all-expenses-paid. 

SSP Wednesday Seminars

The Security Studies Program's lunchtime lectures included: Joby Warrick,Washington Post, on "Triple Agent: Lessons from the CIA's Disaster at Khost, Afghanistan"; Benjamin Runkle, House Armed Services Committee, on "Wanted Dead or Alive: Strategic Manhunts and US National Security"; and Jennifer Dixon, Harvard University, on " Changing the State's Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts." A full list of SSP Seminars for spring 2012 is available here. 

CIS Audits the Economy, Iran, and Gay Rights in Africa

The Center continued with its Audit of the Conventional Wisdom video series featuring the following topics: the future of the euro, with Marco Mazzucchelli, a visiting scholar at Sloan and David Singer, associate professor at the MIT Department of Political Science; Abbas Maleki, the Center's Wilhelm fellow, on US-Iran relations; and Jackee Budesta Batanda, the Center's Neuffer fellow, on how cutting aid to Africa hurts gay rights .

Bustani Middle East Seminar

The Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar hosted two talks: "The North African 'Arab Spring': Days of Rage, Dreams of Trespass," with William Lawrence (Director, North Africa Program for International Crisis Group); and "Iran: Domestic Turmoil and Drumbeats of War," with Ali Banuazizi (Professor of Political Science at Boston College and Director of the Program of Islamic Civilization and Societies).