On September 30, 2014, the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP) hosted Rose E. Gottemoeller, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, U.S. Department of State. The visit consisted of private sessions with Georgia Tech faculty and staff, as well as a public talk attended by guests from the campus and Atlanta area communities.

In a closed morning session Under Secretary Gottemoeller was briefed by faculty, graduate students, and research scientists from the Nunn School, Georgia Tech’s nuclear engineering program, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. This briefing provided her with an overview of Georgia Tech’s teaching and research on the global nuclear security front, with a cross-section of expertise in areas including international security policy, nuclear safeguards, site inspections, knowledge networks, data science, and treaty verification/monitoring.

In her public talk, Under Secretary Gottemoeller discussed arms control in the information age. While she lauded the great gains in arms reductions in the post-Cold War era, she suggested that stored fissile and warhead inventories present grave tracking, monitoring, and verification challenges. Under Secretary Gottemoeller called for leveraging of new information tools-- such as email, social media, and smart phones-- to aid in inspections, mining of big data and other sources for ubiquitous sensing, and societal verification – i.e. establishing a technology- empowered relationship between citizens and government .  Together these approaches could provide a means to “crowd source” treaty monitoring. While Under Secretary Gottemoeller acknowledged the difficulties of implementing novel and “trusted” approaches, she expressed confidence that they presented important complements to traditional treaty monitoring and verification needed to address critical arms control challenges of the twenty-first century.

Rose E. Gottemoeller was sworn in as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security (T) on March 7, 2014. As Under Secretary, Gottemoeller advises the Secretary on arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament. She had served as Acting in this position since February 7, 2012. While Acting, Gottemoeller continued to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, a position she was appointed to on April 6, 2009. She was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation, which entered into force on February 5, 2011.  Under Secretary Gottemoeller has held numerous other positions in the strategic community during her career, including as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and as a Deputy Undersecretary of Energy for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.  She received a B.S. from Georgetown University, a M.A. from George Washington University, and is fluent in Russian.