About the Center for International Security and Cooperation

The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) is Stanford University’s hub for researchers tackling some of the world's most pressing security and international cooperation problems.

Founded more than 25 years ago, CISAC in its early years brought together scholars focused on U.S.-Soviet-China relations, arms control and nonproliferation, and the scientific and technical aspects of international security issues. Today we are building on our historic strengths to seek solutions to the many longstanding and emerging challenges associated with an increasingly complex world.We are guided by our longstanding belief that a commitment to rigorous scholarship, openness to new ideas, and lively intellectual exchange can spur the creation and spread of knowledge to help build a safer world.

Among them are war and civil conflict, migration and transnational flows, issues in public health and the environment, cyber and biosecurity, international norms and ethics, insurgency and homeland security, and nuclear proliferation. CISAC’s multi-disciplinary community brings together social scientists, historians, lawyers, physical and biological scientists, engineers, leaders from the private sector and policymakers.

Through education, scholarship, and track II (or unofficial) diplomacy, CISAC strives to influence the policymaking agenda in the United States and abroad. We are guided in this effort by our longstanding belief that a commitment to rigorous scholarship, openness to new ideas, and lively intellectual exchange can spur the creation and spread of knowledge to help build a safer world.

CISAC's current co-directors are Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, professor and Deane F. Johnson faculty scholar at Stanford Law School and professor (by courtesy) of political science; and Siegfried Hecker, professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering. CISAC's founding co-directors were political scientist John Lewis and physicist Sidney Drell.

Learn more about CISAC from the co-directors, and more about our research areas:

• Cybersecurity Threats and the Future of the Internet

• Governance, Organizations, and Security

• Health and the Environment

• Migration and Transnational Flows

• Nuclear Security and Risk

• Terrorism, Insurgency, and Homeland Security

CISAC Executive Committee

• William Perry, Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor, School of Engineering and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (committee chair)

• Kenneth Arrow, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics, Emeritus, and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus

• Coit Blacker (ex officio), Director and Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor of Political Science, by courtesy

• Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar (ex officio), Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School; CISAC Co-director

• Edward A. Feigenbaum, Kumagai Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, and Co-Scientific Director, Knowledge Systems Laboratory, Emeritus

• Siegfried Hecker (ex officio), Co-Director of CISAC, Professor (Research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

• David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History; Senior Fellow; Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; CISAC Faculty Member; Forum on Contemporary Europe Research Affiliate

• Michael McFaul (on leave), Director, Center for Development, Democracy, and the Rule of Law; Deputy Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Professor of Political Science; Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

• Norman Naimark, Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, Department of History

• Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, Burton J. and DeeDee McMurtry Professor in the School of Engineering and a Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

• Lee D. Ross, Professor of Psychology

• Scott Sagan, Professor of Political Science

• Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Developmental Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

• James Sweeney, Professor, Department of Management Science and Engineering; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

• Lawrence Wein, Paul E. Holden Professor of Management Science; CISAC Faculty Member