Major Fellowship Activities: Farneth served as the coordinator of PSR’s Energy Security Initiative, a multidisciplinary project addressing the security implications of the U.S. energy policy. She helped forge a coalition of PSR staff from both the security and environmental programs, and planned and facilitated the coalition’s meetings. She helped present the initiative’s concept paper to PSR’s Board of Directors in November 2003. She wrote three fact sheets for the Energy Security Initiative: “Military and Foreign Policy Impacts of U.S. Oil Dependence,” “Nuclear Power and the Terrorist Threat,” and “Environmental Health, Global Security, and Fossil Fuel Dependence.” She organized four Energy Security Initiative briefings. The first was entitled “U.S. Energy Policy and Human Health,” focusing on the security and environmental health impacts of fossil fuel and nuclear-based energy, and served as the panel’s moderator. The second briefing she organized was entitled, “The Pentagon Report: Global Security and Climate Change,” which was attended by Congressional staff, embassy staff, representatives of a wide range of public policy organizations, and media. The third briefing, entitled “Threats to U.S. Energy Infrastructure,” addressed a variety of threats, including radiological terrorism and security vulnerabilities in oil/gas shipment. She organized the final Energy Security Initiative briefing, entitled “Geopolitics of Oil,” which featured Professor Michael Klare discussing the coupling of U.S. energy policy and military policy through the twentieth century. She also created the Energy Security Initiative website. She submitted a resolution on the security and health risks posed by U.S. energy policy for adoption by the American Public Health Association (APHA), and was invited by APHA’s Peace Caucus to submit an abstract for a presentation during a session on War, Terrorism, and Public Health at APHA’s 2004 National Conference in November. She has written articles about the Energy Security Initiative for PSR’s Security Activist Update and the Environment & Health Update, and an article for the Environment and Health Update, “Global Climate Change: New Pentagon Report Turns Up the Heat,” outlining the threats to international security associated with climate change. She also wrote an article, “PSR Unites Environment, Security Expertise in New Initiative,” for PSR Reports, PSR’s quarterly newsletter. In addition to her work on the Energy Security Initiative, Farneth wrote a fact sheet on bioterrorism and public health, “How Secure is the Homeland?: Biological Terrorism and U.S. Preparedness.” She compiled presidential candidates’ statements and positions on energy security issues, which will be combined with other issue scorecards and released by the Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative She wrote a factsheet entitled “No Safe Harbor: Security Threats of LNG.” She also helped PSR’s Security Program prepare for the Congressional briefing, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing: Health Effects and Policy Implications.”. She also provides a daily news service to the PSR Security Program.
Farneth attended several meetings and briefings. These include the Alliance for Health Reform’s briefing on bioterrorism and public health, a Resources for the Future seminar by the lead author of a recent MIT study on the future of nuclear power, a WIIS panel on the security threats associated with centralized energy infrastructure, and a forum examining American foreign policy at the Center for American Progress. She represented PSR at the Institute for Policy Studies’ PetroPolitics National Summit in January. She has had meetings with several leaders in the field of energy security, including experts from the Energy Future Coalition, Center for Energy and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Resources for the Future. She also participated in the PSR Security Program 2004 Planning Retreat and in PSR’s Leadership Conference, where she fielded attendees’ questions about the security vulnerabilities associated with nuclear power. She attended the PSR/WAND/CACNP briefing on terrorism prevention and preparedness. She attended the press conference on the Smart Security Resolution, which was introduced by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and written, in part, by PSR. She also attended a Women In International Security briefing, “Energy and Security: Challenges for Russia and the Baltics,’ at the Brookings Institution. More recently she attended “Peaking of World Oil Production: What are we Willing to Risk?” at the Atlantic Council, “The Great Energy Efficiency Debate,” and “Renewable Power: On the Brink of a Revolution?” hosted by Worldwatch Institute. She also represented PSR at the Take Back America conference organized by Campaign for America’s Future.
Current Activities: Farneth is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Haverford College where her research interests include Religious Ethics, Religion and Politics, and Democratic Theory. She earned a PhD in Religion (Religion, Ethics, & Politics subfield) from Princeton University in 2014. Her dissertation focused on varieties of ethical conflicts that emerge in religiously diverse societies, including the ways that such conflicts may be confronted and overcome when citizens draw from different religious and ethical sources. Her broader academic interests include religious and political ethics, philosophy of religion, and democratic theory. She was awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year. In 2011-2012, she was awarded a Graduate Prize Fellowship from the Princeton University Center for Human Values. She was also awarded a Harold W. Dodds Fellowship for 2012-2013 in recognition of “outstanding performance and professional promise.” She received a Graduate Research Fellowship for 2009-2010 from Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion. She previously worked as a Program Assistant with the Education & Youth Development program and the Criminal Justice program at the Open Society Institute in Baltimore. She conducted research and wrote, as well as organized a series of educational forums. She will teach in the Religion Department at the New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College for the 2014-2015 academic year. She earned a Masters in Theological Studies from the Harvard University Divinity School in 2007. The focus of her studies was religion and politics. Previously, she worked as a Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Energy Security Initiative at PSR.