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The CMES/WCFIA Middle East Seminar presents
Gary Samore
Senior Executive Director, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Professor of the Practice of Politics, Brandeis University
Discussant: Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
For a copy of the talk Professor Samore gave on October 4, 2018, click here.
Gary Samore is also Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Dr. Samore served for four years as President Obama’s White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), including as U.S. Sherpa for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Samore was Vice President for Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, where he held the Maurice R. Greenberg chair and directed the David Rockefeller Studies Program. Before joining CFR, Dr. Samore was vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, and from 2001 to 2005, he was Director of Studies and Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. At IISS, he produced three “strategic dossiers” on Iran (2005), North Korea (2004), and Iraq (2002), which are considered authoritative and exemplary assessments of nuclear, biological, chemical, and missile programs in those countries.
Dr. Samore was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export controls under President Clinton from 1995 to 2000. Before the National Security Council, Dr. Samore worked on nonproliferation issues at the State Department. In 1995, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service for his role in negotiating the 1994 North Korea nuclear agreement. Prior to the State Department, he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rand Corporation.
Dr. Samore was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, where he received his MA and PhD in government in 1984. While at Harvard, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at what was then the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs, later to become the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Sahar Nowrouzzadeh is a joint research fellow with the Iran Project and Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her research focuses on Iran’s leadership decision-making and nuclear program. Beginning her tenure as a career civil servant within the U.S. government in 2005, she has focused on Iran under three U.S. administrations. She was charged with covering the Iran portfolio on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff between 2016 and 2017 and served as a Director for Iran and Iran Nuclear Implementation on the White House National Security Council (NSC) Staff from 2014 to 2016. At the NSC, she was part of President Obama’s team responsible for supporting the negotiation and implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between the P5+1, the European Union and Iran in 2015. She also previously served as a Team Chief and Senior Analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense and a Foreign Affairs Officer and Persian Language Spokesperson at the U.S. Department of State. She is the recipient of such awards as the State Department Superior Honor Award, a National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation and the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Global War on Terrorism.
Sahar earned her Bachelor’s Degree in International Affairs with a double concentration in International Economics and Middle East Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in 2005. She earned her Master’s Degree in Persian Studies from the University of Maryland-College Park in 2007. Sahar knows several languages, including Persian, Spanish and Arabic. She was born and raised in Connecticut.
Please note: this lecture will take place in CGIS SOUTH, Rm S050
Co-sponsors: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Contact: Liz Flanagan