Activities and Events

Recent and upcoming nonproliferation activities, events, and announcements involving the CNS center, staff, and programs.
Updated: Oct 28, 2011

Monterey Institute Student's Innovative Geospatial Analysis Work Cited by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller

Second-Year Student Developed Analysis Technique to Aid Arms Control Verification

Monterey, CA—In a speech delivered yesterday at Stanford University, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller cited the geospatial analysis research of Monterey Institute of International Studies student Tamara Patton (NPTS '12) as an example of innovative work being done in the area of arms control verification.

"It's important to recognize the vast potential of freely available software tools like Google Earth and Google SketchUp to identify and analyze nuclear proliferation challenges. Such tools not only allow us to create an immense 'neighborhood watch' effect, but they also allow students and professionals in nonproliferation to perform their own analysis rather than relying on a few confined sources."
—Tamara Patton

Secretary Gottemoeller explained in her remarks how Patton, a second-year honors student in the Institute's Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program, had taken open-source satellite images of Pakistan's Khushab Plutonium Production Complex and used a freely available program called Google Sketch-up, as well as Google Earth tools and basic trigonometry, to construct a three-dimensional model of the facility. The model can then be overlaid onto a map.

Patton, whose geospatial analysis research is the subject of her honors thesis, is expected to graduate next year from the Institute's unique Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program. The program draws heavily for its curriculum on the expertise and resources resident in the Institute's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). CNS is the world's largest research center devoted to combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Delivering the Sidney Drell Lecture at Stanford, Secretary Gottemoeller explored a range of innovations in arms control verification techniques, including open source information technologies and social networking.
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