The Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative

Sponsored by the Hurford Foundation, the Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative aims to help early career scientists understand the global context for their work and thus enable them to work more effectively at international levels.

 

Course Title

Science and Diplomacy

Themes for 2026

Crossing Borders + Strategic Alignments/Alliances

Instructors

Jesse AusubelMande Holford

Jesse Ausubel, Director of Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University, and Mandë Holford, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

Introduction and Synopsis

The shorthand term Science Diplomacy (SD) spans wide-ranging activities connecting science and technology with international affairs. Biomedical and other scientific knowledge can play roles in

  • informing foreign policy with scientific advice (science in diplomacy);
  • facilitating international science cooperation (diplomacy for science); and
  • using science cooperation to improve international relations between countries (science for diplomacy).

Our course takes a long-range view on science and international affairs and emphasizes long-standing traditions in science and long-lived institutions and abiding structural aspects of science diplomacy. Mindful of the turbulence now rocking scientific organizations, programs, and tenets, we also seek insight into causes and consequences of the present storm and what strategic alliances and alignments may arise from it.

The underlying goals of the course remain to help early career life scientists: (a) think more systematically about the global potential and dimensions of their work, including ethical, political, and economic implications; and (b) become acquainted with people, networks, and resources available for scientific cooperation, including for those nations and communities with whom cooperation may be especially difficult.

This year’s series of seven seminars will sample the current landscape of SD issues, programs, and organizations with special attention to sensitive and controversial issues. We will explore how Science Diplomacy can matter for human trafficking, migrations of students and skilled workers, deep ocean mining, globalization and supply chains of industries, the international innovation system, de-extinction of lost megafauna, and finally a new vision for American science and technology. The discussions will range across Latin America and Africa, East Asia, Europe, Siberia, and the oceans. We aim to show both cooperative and competitive faces of international science. We consider the functioning of international science itself, including its efforts to operate in a more open mode in a time of ferocious economic and military competition. We seek to understand a range of perspectives within the USA on science diplomacy, including those of the White House.

This course is a sequel to the ones previously offered, and participants from prior years are welcome to attend again. Several sessions will use polling to learn and analyze views of the course participants. In-person participation is strongly preferred but remote access will be available for most sessions. Several guests will come in-person. Traditionally, we follow some sessions with guest speakers with further conversation at the Faculty and Student Club or dinner at a nearby restaurant. The field trip to Washington DC is limited to ten of the most active course participants with primary Rockefeller University affiliation.

Time: 3-5pm Thursdays, NR 110B

Past Curricula

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

Course Outline

Week 1
Thursday
Feb. 5, 2026
Conchita SarnoffMande Holford

Topics: Introduction to Science Diplomacy, Human Trafficking

Guest: Conchita Sarnoff, Executive Director of Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking (in person)

After framing the basics of Science Diplomacy, we will learn the scale and scope of human trafficking and reasons for its persistence, and then explore ways in which biomedical and genomic sciences may illuminate and mitigate it.

Session Leader: Mandë Holford, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

Readings and Websites:

Week 2
Thursday
Feb. 12, 2026
Joseph ChamieJesse Ausubel

Topic: International migrations of students and skilled workers

Guest: Joseph Chamie, former chief of UN Population Division (remote)

We will explore trends and perspectives on international movements of students and skilled workers involving the US, Europe, East and South Asia, Africa, and Latin America and explore issues of employment, human rights, and the role of free movement of people in the advancement of science itself. We will learn about key organizations providing data, analyses, and programs relating to population and migration.

Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford

Readings and Websites:

Week 3
Thursday
Feb. 19, 2026
Michael Blake

Topic: Field trip to New York office of World Economic Forum

Guest/host: Michael Blake (tbc), Managing Director, World Economic Forum

We will learn about the World Economic Forum, its perspectives on recent geopolitical and geoeconomics developments, and roles of scientists in the Forum. More generally, we learn about international economic and financial institutions bearing heavily on science and technology.

Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford

Readings and Websites:

Week 4
Thursday
Feb. 26, 2026
Patricia Esquete

Topic: Deep Ocean Mining

Guest: Patricia Esquete, Departamento de Biologia & CESAM (Centro de estudos do Ambiente e do Mar), Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal (remote)

We will explore how resources of the deep sea, particular minerals that might be important for energy storage and thus growth of wind and solar energy, might be exploited and participation of deep ocean scientists in governance of the oceans. We will learn about organizations, treaties, and programs that address science and governance of the high seas.

Session Leader: Mandë Holford

Readings and Websites:

Week 5
Thursday
Mar. 5, 2026
Andreas Kosmider

Topic: Falling Walls

Guest: Dr. Andreas Kosmider, Managing Director of Falling Walls Foundation

We will learn about Falling Walls, a unique global hub in Berlin connecting science, business and society that aims to create breakthroughs across borders and disciplines. Falling Walls aims to find out: Which are the next walls to fall? We will learn more generally about international nongovernmental organizations for associating scientists for science diplomacy.

Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel

Readings and Websites:

Thursday
Mar. 12, 2026

No seminar on March 12, 2026

Week 6
Thursday
Mar. 19, 2026
Greg Gedman

Topic: Pleistocene Park

Guest: Greg Gedman, Senior Computational Biologist, Colossal Biosciences (in person)

We will explore reviving extinct species and the chance of a Pleistocene Park that would restore high productive grazing ecosystems in the Arctic, similar to the mammoth steppe ecosystem, which dominated Eurasia in the late Pleistocene. We will learn about the de-extinction of the dire wolf, a species of canine native to the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs (125,000–10,000 years ago). This seminar will also focus on international organizations and programs addressing the genetic rescue of biodiversity and interspecies communication.

Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel

Readings and Websites:

Week 7
Thursday
Mar. 26, 2026
Monica Dus

Topic: Visions for American Science and Technology

Guest: Dr. Monica Dus, Director, Office of National Labs, Office of Vice President for Research; Associate Professor, Dept. of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology​, U. of Michigan

We will explore alternate visions for USA science and technology in a global context and discuss challenges and priorities for Science Diplomacy.

Session Leaders: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford

Readings and Websites:

Field Trip
Thursday-Friday
Apr. 9-10, 2026
 

Field Trip to Washington, DC

Visits (all to be confirmed) with:

Learning Outcomes Sought

Improved understanding of how biomedical and other scientific knowledge can play roles in

  • informing foreign policy objectives with scientific advice (science in diplomacy);
  • facilitating international science cooperation (diplomacy for science);
  • using science cooperation to improve international relations between countries (science for diplomacy).

Course Schedule

Dates: Thursdays, Feb. 5-Mar. 26, 2026
Time: 3-5pm

Additional Reading List

Two or three additional articles may be distributed each week pertaining to the weekly topics.

 The Rockefeller community is a diverse, intellectual scientific village where students and faculty work together to make transformative discoveries in bioscience.Th