Forum Network

Elizabeth Graver is at work on a new project titled Plants and Their Children, comprised of a series of linked novellas set in a summer community on Buzzards Bay from 1942 to 2000. She is the author of three novels: *Awake*, *The Honey Thief*, and *Unravelling*. Her short story collection, *Have You Seen Me?*, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in *Best American Short Stories* (1991, 2001); *Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards* (1994, 1996, 2001), *The Pushcart Prize Anthology* (2001), and *Best American Essays* (1998). Her story *The Mourning Door* was award the Cohen Prize from *Ploughshares Magazine*. The mother of two young daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College.

Ben Birnbaum has worked at Boston College in marketing, communications, public relations, and strategic planning since 1978. His current titles are: Special Assistant to the President; Executive Director, Office of Marketing Communications; Editor, Boston College Magazine; Executive Director, Boston College Front Row; Executive Producer, @BC; and Editorial Director, Linden Lane Press at Boston College. Ben is also a writer of fiction and essays in publications that include *Penthouse*, *Tri-Quarterly Review*, *Midstream*, *Boston Globe*, *Atlantic*, *Harvard Divinity Review*, *Image*, *Moment*, *Nextbook*. He is the editor of a collection of essays, *Take Heart: Catholic Writers on Hope in Our Time* (Crossroad, 2007). His honors include Simon Rockower Award from American Jewish Journalists Association (2006); Best Spiritual Writing (HarperCollins, 2001); Best American Essays (Houghton Mifflin, 2001); God Is Love (Augsburg, 2002); forthcoming Best Spiritual Writing, 2008. Ben earned a B.S. at Ner Israel Rabbinical College; a BA at Queens College; and an M.Ed. at the University of Vermont. He is an elected and appointed official in the Town of Brookline, including Town Meeting Member (1996). Ben was elected to the board in 2008.

Joseph Cirincione joined Ploughshares Fund as president in March 2008. He is author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and served previously as senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for eight years. He worked for nine years in the US House of Representatives as a professional staff member of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations, and served as staff director of the bipartisan Military Reform Caucus. He teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His previous books include two editions of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, (2005 and 2002), and previous reports include Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (co-author, March 2005) and WMD in Iraq (co-author, January 2004). He is the author of over 200 articles on defense issues, the producer of two DVDs on proliferation, the former publisher of the comprehensive proliferation website, Proliferation News, and is a frequent commentator in the media. In the past two years has delivered over 150 speeches around the world and appeared in the 2006 award-winning documentary, Why We Fight. Cirincione is an expert advisor to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, headed by former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) and former Senator Jim Talent (R-MO). Cirincione is an honors graduate of Boston College and holds a Masters of Science from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.

Ed Siegel was theater critic, television critic and an arts editor for *the Boston Globe* from 1971 to 2006. He now is a regular contributor to *the Globe*'s op-ed page and to WBUR-FM as well as a feature writer and essayist for *Berkshire Living* magazine.

Ian Hutchinson is a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and has spoken widely about the intersection of science, faith, and culture. Hutchinson focuses on the theoretical and cultural issues beneath the historic relationship between science and Christianity. His most recent popular material focuses on the notion of scientism, the expansion of the methodology of science beyond its natural limits. Hutchinson is the author of *Principles of Plasma Physics* and an International Advisor to *Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion*, one of the leading plasma physics journals in the world.

Jeffrey A. Coderre is Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering.

Alan Jasanoff is an Associate Member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and an Associate Professor with a primary appointment in the Department of Biological Engineering and additional appointments with the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Nuclear Science, and Engineering. Prior to joining the MIT faculty in 2004, he was a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. He received a Ph.D. in biophysics in 1998 from Harvard in the laboratory of Don Wiley, where he was supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute pre-doctoral fellowship. He also earned an M.Phil. in Chemistry at Cambridge University in 1993 and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1992. He was named a Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Scholar in 2004, and he received a 2006 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award for developing methods to apply MRI calcium sensors for cellular-level functional imaging in living animals.

Dwight L. Williams, a Martin Luther King Visiting Professor, holds a dual appointment in the Security Studies Program and the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Maryland. His dissertation addressed scientific mechanisms required to effectively validate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). He spent four year at the international CTBT personnel training and data processing headquarters, where he instructed international scientists prior to their service at the United Nations facility in Vienna, Austria. Afterwards, he began working for the Defense Intelligence Agency where he continues to work today. As Principal Nuclear Physicist in the Weapons Intelligence Office, he is actively involved in defense, intelligence community (IC), and research and development activities. He is working with the White House on a national nuclear research strategy and regularly briefs members of Congress. In 2006, he won a Director of National Intelligence Fellow Award. This is the highest IC award available to scientists and was conferred at a White House ceremony. Other awards include a Certificate of Congressional Recognition and countless commendations for accomplishments in support of the U.S. led war on terrorism and federal technical research.

Allison Macfarlane is currently an Associate Professor of Environment Science and Policy at George Mason University and an associate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs' Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University. She was formerly an MTA/ISP postdoctoral fellow. She was most recently a Research Associate at MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society. Previously, she was Associate Professor of International Affairs and Earth & Atmospheric Science at Georgia Tech. She received her PhD in geology from MIT in 1992. She has held the position of professor of geology and women's studies at George Mason University. She has also held fellowships at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. From 1998 to 2000 she was a Social Science Research Council MacArthur Foundation fellow in International Peace and Security. From 1999 to 2001 she served on a National Academy of Sciences panel on the spent fuel standard and excess weapons plutonium disposition. Her research focuses on international security and environmental policy issues associated with nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Her book on the unresolved technical issues for nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, *Uncertainty Underground*, was published in 2006.