In this talk, Dr. Kassenova will present highlights from her award-winning book "Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb" (Stanford University Press, 2022). She will share the history of Soviet nuclear tests in the Kazakh steppe, their harm to the people and the environment, and the story of the public anti-nuclear movement that led to the closure of the nuclear testing site. She will explain why Kazakhstan decided to give up its nuclear inheritance, which included more than a thousand nuclear weapons, more than a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles, tons of nuclear materials, and critical nuclear infrastructure.

Dr. Togzhan Kassenova is a Washington, DC-based senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research (University at Albany) and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is an expert on nuclear politics, WMD nonproliferation, and financial crime prevention. She currently works on issues related to proliferation financing controls, exploring ways to minimize access of proliferators to the global financial system. Kassenova holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Leeds. From 2011 to 2015, Kassenova served on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at crees@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.