Athens, Ga. – The Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute (BHSI) and Center for International Trade and Security (CITS) are working to forge links between science and policy experts through a new lecture series at the University of Georgia.
Corrie Brown, pathology professor and coordinator of international activities at the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Michael Beck, executive director of the Center for International Trade and Security, will discuss agricultural security for the inaugural UGA Science and Security Lecture on Thursday, Jan.11 at 4 p.m.
This seminar series will be held every second Thursday of the month in auditorium of the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. Each seminar will focus on a single topic in the area of biosecurity and be led by a pair of UGA experts, one from science and one from policy.
Brown specializes in the diagnosis and pathogenesis of foreign animal diseases. She currently is a member of the Secretary of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases, and has testified to Congress on issues involving agro-terrorism.
Beck’s research focuses on international strategic trade and export controls.He has directed several projects assessing national export control systems and has conducted field research in over ten countries on export control and border security issues.
With the creation of the new seminar series, the BHSI and CITS have embarked upon a campus-wide initiative in science and security at UGA.
“The Science and Security Initiative has at its core a mission to promote science-based policy solutions to security challenges of the 21st century,” said Harry Dailey, BHSI director. “By bringing the internationally recognized strengths of the CITS in security policy together with UGA’s considerable strengths in the biological sciences, we feel we can build an outstanding program at the university that can meet these goals.”
Bradley Smith, an assistant professor and associate at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, will be the next featured speaker on Feb. 8 and will discuss career options in biosecurity and science policy.
UGA faculty members Cham Dallas and Igor Khripunov will team up to discuss nuclear security issues on March 8. Dallas is director of the Center for Mass Destruction Defense, and a professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in the College of Pharmacy. Khripunov is the CITS’s associate director in charge of the projects in the former Soviet Union and adjunct professor of international affairs at UGA.
For more information about the UGA Science and Security Initiative and its planned programs, please contact Harry Dailey at hdailey@uga.edu or Gary Bertsch, director of CITS, at gbertsch@uga.edu.
