The George Washington University The Elliott School of International Affairs

Intersections of Science, Technology, and International Affairs: Navigating Challenges and Seizing Opportunities

Cybersecurity. Artificial intelligence (AI). Climate change. Decarbonization. 5G—and 6G. Smart cities. Adaptation to climate stress and disasters. The rise of commercial space programs. Nuclear security. Smart agriculture. Offshoring and homeshoring of critical industrial technologies. Technology transfer for innovations such as critical drugs, genetically modified crops, or cutting-edge energy technologies.

Today, the most interesting problems in international affairs are all intertwined with science, technology, and innovation. There are two ways to respond to this trend: specialize or generalize. Policy practitioners need to do both.

On the one hand, international affairs work will increasingly require specialized knowledge. Deep science and technology expertise helps practitioners do things such as translate the science of climate change for policymakers, assess cybersecurity risks, handle biosecurity and disease management cooperation problems, and understand the ways AI could upend competitive advantage in industry or even how humans see and understand the world.

On the other hand, to cope with the rapidity and unpredictability of technological change, practitioners also need to be able to quickly grasp new developments and adapt to change. That requires fast, flexible, rigorous thinking and communication, with broad science and policy literacy and versatile problem-solving skills.

The Elliott School offers an unmatched playing field to pursue both.

We’re a great place to specialize. You’ll dig deep into specialized programs, institutes, and courses from cybersecurity to space policy to sustainable development—many taught by active policy practitioners. Moreover, George Washington University offers an unusual range of other schools that can further your expertise, in engineering and applied sciences, public health, law, public policy, business, media and public affairs, and arts and design. At the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, where I work, connecting students to the right expertise is a core part of our mission.

But we’re also a great place to generalize and get practical experience. What excites me about my teaching and research in climate policy is that I’m often dealing with policy problems that haven’t been solved. How do we get to a zero-carbon energy grid? How do we protect ecosystems from unprecedented pressures? It’s people such as my students that will go on to create those solutions.

My teaching emphasizes rigorous, open-ended approaches to break down the important aspects of a problem—technologically, socially, politically—and figure out how those building blocks could be changed or rearranged to allow a novel solution. I focus on tools to do that: frameworks for organized, critical thinking, efficient research skills, and practice in concise, clear policy writing.

There’s no better place to learn this than Elliott—not just because of our own resources but because the opportunities to turn theory into practice are so accessible. Given our location in the heart of Washington, many of my students work next door in the executive branch, the World Bank/IMF, K Street, or leading nonprofits. The unique fun of being here is that what we discuss in class one day may be what a student wrestles with at work the next.