Center for Nonproliferation Studies

On behalf of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, I would like to invite you to the first Critical Issues Forum Speaker Series event of the 2026–2027 academic year!

We are so delighted to invite you to:

Learning from History: John Hersey’s Hiroshima

A Conversation with Historian and Educator Bruce Janu

Please join the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) for an Open House celebrating our new space at Middlebury College and the work of our students, faculty, and staff. CNS is the largest U.S.-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to research, teaching, and training on threats from weapons of mass destruction. For more than 35 years, the Center has worked to educate the next generation of nonproliferation experts. Its new Middlebury office expands CNS’s presence alongside existing locations in Monterey, Washington, DC, and Vienna. 

How do you tell a complex energy story in just a few seconds — using AI as your creative partner?

In this hands-on, hybrid masterclass (in person + Zoom), participants will step inside the world of The Atomic Gamble, a documentary exploring AI’s growing thirst for energy and the turn to nuclear power for data centers. Instead of listening to a lecture about the film, you’ll actively create your own AI-assisted micro-documentary inspired by one chapter of its script.

This event features the film The Bomb, created by Smriti Keshari, an award-winning Indian-American filmmaker, director, writer, and artist known for her bold and groundbreaking storytelling. The Bomb is a critically acclaimed documentary that places viewers at the center of the story of nuclear weapons, exploring their immense power, perverse allure, and the profound death wish at their heart.

Join award-winning filmmaker J. Mitchell Johnson and MIRS Director Professor Anna Vassilieva for an exclusive preview screening of “Coming Round,” an 85-minute documentary presenting the Kashia Pomo Indian tribe’s struggle to heal from historical trauma through the landmark repatriation of their ancestral lands on California’s northern coast.

On behalf of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), I am delighted to invite you and your school to join an upcoming online Speaker Series event hosted by the Critical Issues Forum (CIF). The event will be held via Zoom on Friday, October 24, 4:00 PM PDT / Saturday, October 25, 8:00 AM JST.

Join Theiline Pigott and Marie Jones from the RAND Forecasting Initiative (RFI), Wednesday September 24th at 11am, to learn about an upcoming forecasting competition that RAND is co-hosting. The competition will run from October 1 to December 15. Students will have the opportunity to forecast on geopolitical, economic, military, healthcare, and social questions while competing against other university students from around the world.

This year marks 80 years since the dawn of the nuclear age—beginning with the first detonation of a nuclear weapon by the U.S. Army on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert as part of the Manhattan Project, followed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9. This event is a moment for remembrance, reflection, and a renewed call to action for a world free of nuclear weapons.

The true story of 12 American POWs killed at Hiroshima in 1945 and the Japanese Hibakusha who refused to let them be forgotten. A story of humanity, reconciliation, friendship, and peace. With the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we hope this event will honor their unwavering efforts for a world without nuclear weapons.

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies’ CIF and the JEDI office at MIIS present a screening of the movie “Richland”. A U.S. nuclear company town stakes its identity on its little-known atomic origin story in this timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past. Irene Lusztig, the director, will also be present to take questions after the screening.