2024 Doomsday Clock Town Hall
The Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown University and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists invite Georgetown University students, faculty, staff, and alumni to the 2024 Doomsday Clock Town Hall. The town hall will consist of a panel discussion with members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security board, the experts who set the Doomsday Clock. The town hall is scheduled from 2:30 to 3:30 PM ET in the Healey Family Student Center’s Social Room. This event is presented in collaboration with Georgetown University campus partners including the Department of Government, Master of Arts in American Government, Master of Arts in Democracy & Governance, and the Master of Science in Foreign Service.
Doors will open for seating at 2:00 PM ET. Seating will conclude promptly at 2:30 PM ET. Only ticketed attendees will be seated. Register in advance on Eventbrite to attend in person.
This event will be livestreamed on YouTube Live.
About the Panelists
George is the executive director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. She is a public health security professional whose research and programmatic emphasis has been practical, academic, and political. George served in the US House of Representatives as a senior professional staffer and subcommittee staff director at the House Committee on Homeland Security in the 110th and 111th Congress. She has worked for a variety of organizations, including government contractors, foundations, and non-profits. As a contractor, she supported and worked with all federal Departments, especially the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services. George also served on active duty in the US Army as a military intelligence officer and as a paratrooper. She is a decorated Desert Storm Veteran. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Doctorate in Public Health from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She is also a graduate of the Harvard University National Preparedness Leadership Initiative.
Latiff retired from the US Air Force as a major general in 2006. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame and a research professor at George Mason University’s School of Engineering. He is also a member of Committee on Transformative Science and Technology for the Department of Defense and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Latiff’s new book, Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War, looks at the role technology plays in leading us into conflict. He is also the author of Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield.
Socolow is professor emeritus in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. From 2000 to 2019, he and Steve Pacala were the co-principal investigators of Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative, a twenty-five-year (2001-2025) project supported by BP. His best-known paper, with Pacala, was in Science (2004): “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies.” Socolow is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His is the recipient of the 2003 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society. Two other awards are the 2005 Axelson Johnson Commemorative Lecture award from the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences of Sweden (IVA), and the 2009 Frank Kreith Energy Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is also the co-winner of the 2023 John Scott Award, the oldest award in science in the United States.
Wolfsthal is the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists and a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was appointed to the US Department of State’s International Security Advisory Board in 2022. He served previously as senior advisor to Global Zero in Washington, DC. Before 2017, Mr. Wolfsthal served as Special Assistant to President of the United States Barack Obama for National Security Affairs and is a former senior director at the National Security Council for arms control and nonproliferation. He also served from 2009-2012 as Special Advisor to Vice President Joseph R. Biden for nuclear security and nonproliferation and as a director for nonproliferation on the National Security Council. During his government service, Wolfsthal has been involved in almost every aspect of U.S. nuclear weapons, deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation policy.