The Center for Strategic and International Studies was founded in 1962. CSIS provides strategic insights and policy solutions to decisionmakers in government, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society. CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC that is led by Dr. John J. Hamre, a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense.
Scoville Fellows at CSIS are placed with the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI). PONI was founded in 2003 to develop the next generation of policy, technical, and operational nuclear professionals by fostering, sustaining, and convening a networked community of young professionals prepared to meet the nuclear challenges of the future. PONI sponsors numerous opportunities for young professionals to engage in thoughtful and informed debate on the nuclear community’s most pressing challenges. Since 2003, PONI has hosted 60 conferences with over 700 presentations from young professionals and emerging experts and convened 294 Nuclear Scholars who completed research projects on the full spectrum of nuclear issues.
In addition to extensive programming PONI supports research and analysis in the nuclear and broader WMD arena, both through the young scholars and affiliates to the program as well as independent senior research efforts led by the PONI Director and Deputy Director. PONI would also encourage the Scoville Fellow to collaborate with the PONI team in developing research agendas, table top exercises, simulations and other interactive activities for conferences and the Nuclear Scholars Initiative. Topics for future projects might include regional deterrence dynamics and escalation management, next steps in nuclear security, managing nuclear risks in instability and crisis, or nuclear proliferation issues.