News & Announcements

Frank von Hippel, co-founder of SGS, recounts his life and career in nuclear policy in his memoir, "Ending the Nuclear Arms Race: A Physicist’s Quest."

For his exceptional service and tireless commitment to peace and security, his outstanding contributions to scientific peace research, and his significant peace-building activities in the field of nuclear arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation.

Thanks in part to advocacy efforts by SGS, the United Nations will commission an international scientific study on the effects of nuclear war for the first time in more than three decades.

The Missile Defense Footprint Calculation and Comparison code is an open-source software tool that can model missiles and interceptors and calculate footprints for different scenarios.

In November 2024 the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security supported a resolution that SGS helped initiate and develop mandating an international scientific study of the effects of nuclear war.

The School aims to train next-generation scientists and engineers from around the world in technical perspectives on understanding, reducing and ending the threat from nuclear weapons.

SGS researcher Sébastien Philippe testified before the French National Assembly about his work on the legacy and impact of French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

For accurately estimating radiation doses from French and U.S. nuclear tests and effectively communicating these findings to the public, as well as assessing potential radiation from nuclear attacks on U.S. ICBM silos, demonstrating the importance of addressing scientific findings and consulting affected individuals.

For seminal scientific contributions and innovations to advance nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament verification and mentoring many students and young researchers over the years

SGS is hosting special one-time performance at Princeton University of Talking About the Fire on October 11, 2024

SGS organized a special five-week exhibition “Close Encounters: Facing the Bomb in a New Nuclear Age”, on display at the Bernstein Gallery in Robertson Hall, home of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

The Program on Science and Global Security held the Bruce Blair Memorial Lecture 2024 on 19 September at Princeton University. A panel discussion featured authors Eric Schlosser and Annie Jacobson, and filmmaker and artist Smriti Keshari.

The grants supports the work of SGS to advance effective policies for nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament, and a safer and more peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

At a time when we think everything can be made visible, how do we know what we see is true? What are the opportunities and limits of satellite imagery in helping us make sense of humanitarian crises, extreme climate events, and armed conflicts?

Fifteen Native American scholars, activists and leaders joined Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) and other Princeton University researchers and students in May 2024 to participate in a workshop titled “Indian Country in the American Nuclear Age.” 

SGS and the Princeton Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment sponsored the Washington DC launch of the leading independent assessment of the status of the nuclear power industry worldwide.

As part of the international outreach work of the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, the workshop discussed new technical developments and how the physics community can advocate for reducing the nuclear weapons threat.

The mission of the School is to teach young scientists and engineers about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and prepare them to challenge deeply entrenched nuclear weapons policies.

Published by the Journal of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, the workshop report reflects on major issues for societal verification that emerged during the meeting. 

SGS organized the inaugural Bruce Blair Memorial Lecture, the first in a series of lectures and activities honoring Bruce Blair and advancing understanding of the risks of nuclear weapons.

SGS-led project with Columbia’s Journalism School, Scientific American, and Nuclear Princeton exposes the risks and consequences of keeping and modernizing hundreds of nuclear missiles in silos in the Mid-West, including on Native American land.

Inspired by the SGS VR experience The Nuclear Biscuit and supported by the SGS-based Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, a new Kurzgesagt video had over two million views in the first 24 hours.

SGS study estimates radioactive contamination from U.S. tests in New Mexico and Nevada, and offers marker for the start of the Anthropocene.

SGS organized two initiatives on deepening understanding of US-China relations, aimed to facilitate technical and policy conversations on arms control, nonproliferation, strategic stability, and disarmament, as well as understand how China approaches nuclear weapon strategy and policy.

To address challenges introduced by the weaponization of emerging technologies, SGS organized a workshop that brought together a group of scientists, experts, scholars and policy specialists from the U.S., Europe, China and the United Nations.

Whyte was President of the UN Conference in 2017 involving 124 states that negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Three SGS researchers were appointed to the newly created scientific advisory group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Kmentt served as President of the 1st Meeting of States Parties of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, held in June 2022 in Vienna.

Sixty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the threats posed by nuclear weapons are as relevant as ever.
 

Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security organized four events at the Tenth Review Conference of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held at the United Nations in New York.

SGS researchers were active participants in three meetings in Vienna from 18-23 June organized around the first meeting of states parties to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The report argues for ending all separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, whether for nuclear weapons or for civilian purposes.

Fostering a conversation on how dismantling nuclear weapons requires dealing with the political, economic, and cultural scaffolding that have facilitated its existence for seventy-seven years.

The project uses innovative documentary storytelling and unprecedented virtual production techniques to recreate the lived experiences of people in Hawaii who, for 38 minutes, had to react and make impossible decisions in the face of a perceived imminent nuclear threat.

Co-authored by Frank von Hippel; Masafumi Takubo, a leading Japanese expert on nuclear-energy policy; and Jungmin Kang, former Chairman of South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.

Participants from the 2019 UCS Summer Symposium on Science and World Affairs, American university of Beirut. Photo courtesy, Ali Ahmad.

SGS releases annotated bibliography exploring and countering racism and other forms of exclusion and domination in nuclear studies.

Sébastien Philippe has co-authored with Tomas Statius the book, Toxique, on the human and environmental legacy of French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Faculty, researchers and students at SGS observed the entry into the force of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on 22 January as a milestone in the long effort to address the danger of nuclear weapons.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian of the Program on Science and Global Security has authored the new book A New Structure for Security, Peace, and Cooperation in the Persian Gulf.

The Simons Foundation Canada has supported the creation of The Bruce Blair Memorial Fund at Princeton University to support work at the Program on Science and Global Security on nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament.

SGS is supporting a new undergraduate student project to investigate the impacts of the nuclear age on Native Nations in the United States and Princeton’s role in helping shape this age.

Glaser has been recognized “for major contributions to advancing the scientific and technical basis for nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament verification.”

A group of researchers at SGS in their individual capacities have initiated a public statement by scientists in defense of democracy in the United States.

Ray Acheson wins the annual Nuclear-Free Future Award for 2020 in the category of “Solutions” for her analysis, research and advocacy across a range of disarmament and arms control issues and especially to abolish nuclear weapons.

From September through December 2020, SGS will be hosting the first Princeton Virtual School on Science and Global Security featuring invited talks with next-generation scientists and engineers from around the world.

Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security mourns loss of Bruce G. Blair

SGS recognizes the impacts of systemic racism against black lives and supports efforts to counter the structures of exclusion and domination that work to deny and limit the dignity and rights of minoritized communities to participate freely and contribute fully and equally in society.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian of the Program on Science and Global Security and former SGS researcher Emad Kiyaei have co-authored the new book A Middle East Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A New Approach to Nonproliferation.

Frank von Hippel of the Program on Science and Global Security, Jungmin Kang, and Masafumi Takubo have co-authored the new book Plutonium: How Nuclear Power's Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare.

Senior government officials, national security experts, and civil society leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany engaged with a pioneering virtual reality simulation of presidential decision-making in a nuclear weapons crisis developed by an international team led by Sharon Weiner.

He will be helping the Forum support early-career physicists and students to learn how to engage more effectively in issue-based advocacy locally, nationally, and internationally.

A new working paper by William Walker motivated by the observation that, beyond a certain stage, a state’s possession and use of nuclear weapons become embedded, highly resistant to pressure, entreaty and altered circumstance. Reversibility appears to give way to irreversibility.

The Journal of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament at Nagasaki University has published the first three installments of a series of interviews with Frank von Hippel.

A global civil society initiative involving 62 countries as part of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent has selected Ernesto Mané of the Program on Science and Global Security as one of the 100 Most Influential People of African Descent under 40 years of age for 2019.

Two new articles by SGS researchers provide technical and policy ideas to support the effective implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The two-year grant by the American Physical Society (APS) Innovation Fund seeks to educate and re-engage the U.S. physics community on the globally important issue of the risk posed by nuclear weapons and the pressing need to reduce this threat.

Bruce Blair published “The End of Nuclear Warfighting: Moving to a Deterrence-Only Posture -- An Alternative U.S. Nuclear Posture Review” to make the case for a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, no hair-trigger response, and elimination of most U.S.

Tamara Patton presented a virtual reality project which seeks to reenergize public debate on the threats posed by nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century being developed by SGS in collaboration with Games for Change, Archer's Mark and Atlas V.

Zia Mian was named winner of the American Physical Society’s (APS) 2019 Leo Szilard Award, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society.