Emerging Techniques Forum

Ryan Barrett is currently a Brookings Fellow assigned to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Europe, Energy, the Environment, and Cyber. He collaborates with various stakeholders in government, non-governmental organizations, and academics on foreign policy issues, as well as developing policy options for the Subcommittee Chair, Congressman Bill Keating. Prior to his current assignment, he was a program analyst for security cooperation initiatives at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), focusing on security assistance to Eastern European partners.

Before entering the civil service at the Department of Defense, Ryan lived and worked in Belarus and Ukraine, learning Russian and conducting research on policy-making processes. He served on active duty as a Logistics Readiness Officer in the USAF, completing one tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. Ryan is a recipient of both the Pat Tillman Fellowship and the Boren Fellowship. He earned his B.A. in International Studies from the School of International Service at the American University, a M.A. in International Relations from Webster University, as well as a M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri - Saint Louis.

Dr. Baruch Fischhoff is Howard Heinz University Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy and Institute for Politics and Strategy, Carnegie Mellon University.  A graduate of the Detroit Public Schools, he holds a BS (mathematics, psychology) from Wayne State University and a PhD (psychology) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.  He is past President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and of the Society for Risk Analysis.  He has chaired the FDA Risk Communication Advisory Committee and been a member of the Eugene (Oregon) Commission on the Rights of Women, the DHS Science and Technology Advisory Committee and the EPA Scientific Advisory Board, where he chaired the Homeland Security Advisory Committee.  He has received the American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology, Carnegie Mellon’s Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching, a Doctorate of Humanities honoris causa from Lund University, an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, and Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement.  He is a Fellow of APA, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, Society of Experimental Psychologists, and Society for Risk Analysis. His books include Acceptable Risk (1981), A Two-State Solution in the Middle East (1993), Risk: A Very Short Introduction (2011), Communicating Risks and Benefits (2011) and Counting Civilian Casualties (2013).  He has served on many committees of the National Academies, including recent ones on science communication, intelligence analysis, cybersecurity, global change, and pandemic disease.

Michael Ford, PPPL’s associate laboratory director for engineering, leads more than 200 staff members in PPPL’s Engineering Department. A veteran of the nuclear U.S. Navy, his most recent position was strategy development director for the Energy and Global Security (EGS) Directorate at Argonne National Laboratory. There he led Phase I of the National Demonstration Reactor Siting Study supporting the National Reactor Innovation Center. He previously was a researcher at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and is currently collaborating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on research focused on energy system alternatives and the development of microreactors. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.