The Global Security Initiative provides a space for the BU community to learn about and better understand our increasingly complex security landscape. Through events with internal and external speakers, this initiative aims to generate novel insights into a wide range of security topics, including the transformative impact of new technologies, the pressing issue of climate change, the complex dynamics of migration, and the far-reaching consequences of pandemics.
Contact Professor Sanne Verschuren or Professor Benjamin Goossen (gsipar@bu.edu) for more inquiries.
Faculty Affiliates
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Sanne Verschuren
Co-Director, Global Security Initiative
Assistant Professor of International Security (Pardee School)
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Benjamin Goossen
Co-Director, Global Security Initiative
Assistant Professor of International History (Pardee School)
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Thomas Berger
Professor of International Relations (Pardee School)
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Rachel Brulé
Associate Professor of Global Development Policy (Pardee School)
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Rosella Capella Zielinski
Associate Professor (Political Science Department)
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Alexander de la Paz
Assistant Professor of International Security (Pardee School)
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Peter Dombrowski
Visiting Scholar (Pardee School)
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Brook Durham
Assistant Professor of History (Department of History)
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Aimee Gennell
Assistant Professor of International History (Pardee School)
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William W. Grimes
Professor of International Relations and Political Science (Pardee School)
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Joseph Harris
Associate Professor of Sociology (Department of Sociology)
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Gretchen Heefner
Chair and Professor of History (Department of History, Northeastern University)
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Robert Hefner
Professor of Anthropology (Pardee School)
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Elena Kempf
Assistant Professor (Department of History, MIT)
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Patrick Keys
Assistant Professor (Earth and Environment)
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Tim Longman
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Professor of International Relations and Political Science (Pardee School)
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Noora Lori
Associate Professor of International Relations; Director of Middle East – North Africa Initiative (Pardee School)
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Shamiran Mako
Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science (Pardee School)
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Zachary Mondesire
Assistant Professor of International Relations (Pardee School)
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Kaija Schilde
Associate Professor of International Relations (Pardee School)
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Jessica Stanton
Visiting Professor of Law (Law School)
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Jessica Stern
Research Professor (Pardee School)
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Ana Villarreal
Associate Professor of Sociology (Department of Sociology)
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Jack Weinstein
Professor of Practice (Pardee School)
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Joseph Wippl
Professor of Practice (Pardee School)
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John D. Woodward, Jr.
Professor of Practice (Pardee School)
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Min Ye
Professor of International Relations; Interim Director of Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future (Pardee School)
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Muhammad Hamid Zaman
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Global Health & Director, Center on Forced Displacement
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Events
SPRING 2026
Event updates coming soon.
GLOBAL SECURITY INITIATIVE FALL 2026 SEMINAR SERIES
FALL 2025
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- Global Security Amid Increasing Tensions
Research on Tap - Putting the Iranian Nuclear Program in a Broader Context
Gary Semore (Brandeis University), Ali Kadivar (Boston College), Shamiran Mako (Boston University), Sanne Verschuren (Boston University), Scott Taylor (Boston University) - Sand, Snow, and Stardust: The Military Origins of What We Know About Extreme Environments Today
Gretchen Heefner, Northeastern University - The Allure of the Gas Stove: Gender and Energy Security in Socialist Czechoslovakia
Julia Mead, Harvard University - How to Achieve Arms Control When By All Accounts “Arms Control is Dead”
Mallory Stewart, Executive Vice President of The Council on Strategic Risks, former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control
- Global Security Amid Increasing Tensions
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SPRING 2025
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- Book Workshop: Religion and War in the Middle East
Ron Hassner, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California Berkeley - Modernizing the Nuclear Triad: Securing Strategic Superiority in the 21st Century
Major General Stacy Jo Huser, Commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command - China’s Evolving Nuclear Policy: Motivations and Implications for U.S. Security?
Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Geoeconomic Fragmentation and the World Economy
Shekhar Aiyar, Assistant Director, International Monetary Fund Research Department - Latin America and the Origins and Development of the Nuclear Order
J. Luis Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of International Security and Law, George Mason University
- Book Workshop: Religion and War in the Middle East
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FALL 2024
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- Cracking the Code: How Do We Fortify America’s Infrastructure in a Connected World?
Jeff Greene, Acting Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) - Integrated Deterrence: The Need for Combat-Ready Space Power
L.t. General David N. Miller, Commander of Space Operations Command - Elections in the U.S. and Europe: What Does This Mean for the Transatlantic Security Relationship?
Roundtable with Kaija Schilde (BU), Stacie Goddard (Wellesley), Lauren Sukin (MIT), and Polina Beliakova (MIT) - Contested Nuclear Taboo in the Third Nuclear Age
Michal Smetana, Professor at Charles University - How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare
Narges Bajoghli, Assistant Professor and Vali Nasr, Professor at the John Hopkins University
- Cracking the Code: How Do We Fortify America’s Infrastructure in a Connected World?
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SPRING 2024
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- Inheriting the Bomb: Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament and Why It Matters
Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate, Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School - The Long 1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Humanity, and the ‘Pacification’ of Madagascar
Dr. Oumar Ba, Assistant Professor at the Cornell University
- Inheriting the Bomb: Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament and Why It Matters
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News
Videos
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- Latin America and the Origins and Development of the Nuclear Order
- Contested Nuclear Taboo in the Third Nuclear Age: A Lecture by Michal Smetana
- Elections in the U.S. and Europe: What Does This Mean for the Transatlantic Security Relationship?
- Integrated Deterrence: The Need for Combat-Ready Space Power
- Cracking the Code: How Do We Fortify America’s Infrastructure in a Connected World
- Inheriting the Bomb and Why it Matters
