The third event in the 2015-2016 PONI Conference Series will be held December 9-10 at CSIS in Washington, DC. The two-day conference will feature presentations from emerging nuclear experts covering topics including U.S. nuclear policy and posture in the face of modernization and sequestration, non-state actors, nuclear security, escalation dyanmics, and perspectives on Russia and Europe. The conference will also include a keynote address by Tom Countryman, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Department of State, and feature a panel discussion on the health of the nuclear enterprise. Agenda and Participants Panel 1: U.S. Nuclear Policy and Posture in the Face of Modernization and Sequestration Nuclear Weapons Modernization: Thinking about the Unthinkable Michaela Dodge, Senior Policy Analyst, Defense and Strategic Policy, The Heritage Foundation America’s Strategic Nuclear Force Structure in the 21st Century: Operational and Deterrence Impacts of Re-Phasing Current Modernization Plans Marc Quint, Post Master’s Research Associate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Balancing Deterrence Katherine Blakeley, Policy Analyst, National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress Dime Store Deterrence: Getting What You Pay For Evan Thompson, Research Associate, Octant Associates, LLC Panel 2: Non-State Actors Rethinking the Proliferation Paradigm Sarah Laderman, MS/MPP Candidate, University of California, Berkeley, and Fellow, Nuclear Science and Security Consortium The Wild Wild East: Nuclear Trafficking and the ‘Lawless Land’ of Eastern Europe and the Russian Caucasus Ross Hagan, Master’s Candidate in Applied Intelligence, Mercyhurst University Apocalypse Now? Rethinking Nuclear Terror in the Age of ISIS Minsu Crowder-Han, Graduate Student, Georgetown University Panel 3: Escalation Dynamics Managing Escalation in Conventional Conflicts with Nuclear-Armed Adversaries Vincent Manzo, Policy Analyst, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, Department of Defense Early Warning? Forecasting Escalation Patterns in South Asian Nuclear Crises Hannah Haegeland, Scoville Peace Fellow, Stimson Center Miscalculation Scare: Why ASBM and CPGS Weapons Will Not Increase Nuclear Escalation Risk Kang Jiang, PhD Candidate, King’s College Panel 4: Perspectives on Europe and Russia Making the Case for Preserving the INF Treaty- A European Perspective Anna Peczeli, Research Fellow, Center for Strategic and Defense Studies Whither Goes the Transatlantic Security Partnership? Selim Sazak, Researcher, Foreign Policy Program, The Century Foundation Lauren Sukin, Student, Political Science, Brown University Emerging Security Alliances Challenging the Status Quo and U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Russia Sofie Roehrig, Student, International Relations, George Washington University Russian Perspective on Strategic Non-Nuclear Deterrence Harrison Menke, Wargaming Analyst, SAIC Panel 5: Nuclear Security Role of New Scientific Approaches in Tamper Detection for Nuclear Security Tessa Pinon, Postdoctoral Scholar, Pennsylvania State University Nuclear Monitoring in the Post-Cold War Era: Technology to Support Unilateral Actions Heather Meeks, Program Manager, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Portal Monitoring Systems for Nuclear Threat Reduction- Looking Inside the Box Dr. Jonathan Burns, Threat Reduction Physicist, Atomic Weapons Establishment Exporting Nuclear Safety Captain Jeffrey Graham, Deputy Lead Project Officer, Nuclear Use Control, Defense Threat Reduction Agency