This 10-part series examines the ongoing impact of the 2016 election on countries and regions worldwide. Each week, Jackson School faculty experts will explore perspectives from Europe, Asia, Mexico, Russia and the Middle East as well as questions of climate change and historical context in the U.S. presidency.

“” lectures will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Monday afternoons in room 110 of Kane Hall, and all are open to the public. Jackson School Director will be moderator for these events.

The schedule is as follows:

Oct. 2: Trump and the World — a Historical Perspective, with , assistant professor of international studies
Oct. 9: The Middle East and Israel, with , professor of international studies
Oct. 16: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf, with , affiliate professor of international studies
Oct. 23: The US-Mexican Border, with , associate professor and chair of the
Oct. 30: India, with , associate professor, director of the
Nov. 6: China, with , professor of international studies
Nov. 13: The Korean Peninsula, with , professor of international studies
Nov. 20: The International Climate Regime, with , professor of international studies and director of the
Nov. 27: Russia, with , professor of history and international studies.
Dec. 4: Final panel discussion and round table.

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For more information about the series, contact the Jackson School at 206-543-6001 or jsisadv@uw.edu. Interested press may contact Monique Thormann, Jackson School director of communications, at 206-685-0578 or thormm@uw.edu.

What are the policies of global rising powers regarding the use of orbital and outer space, and what are the implications of those policies for international cooperation?

Doctoral students at the briefed a gathering of space industry, media and government representatives on such topics in a capstone event at the 91±¬ÁÏ held June 8.

The students are fellows of the Jackson School’s , led by , professor and associate director of the Jackson School, who convened the space industry stakeholders to hear short reports on their work. Fellows reported on the space-related activities of China, India, Russia, South Korea, Israel and the European Union.

The student presentation were as follows:

Seonhee Kim reported on structural reforms and hoped-for modernizations in the Russian space industry and its new state space corporation, , organized in 2015.
Deep Pal spoke about a comprehensive space policy that India is drafting with input from commercial entities.
Clint Work discussed the rapid, state-led development of South Korea’s space program over the past 25 years.
Indra Ekmanis briefed the group on how European space policymakers have concentrated on data collection and how the European Space Agency’s space policy decisions are motivated in large part by socio-ecological concerns.
Oded Oron reported on Israel, saying that country views space as an avenue for financial growth and sees investment in its civil space industry as part of its national branding as a “start-up” nation.
Muyang Chen, who assisted in organizing the event, spoke about China’s burgeoning state-owned space industry and how reforms will partially privatize such activities and transform military-use technologies to civilian use. She said these changes may provide opportunities for private entities to enter the Chinese aerospace market, though the Chinese government will maintain strong control over the industry.

Pekkanen, speaking on behalf of Joshua Williams, who could not attend, discussed Japan’s space activities, saying its government regulatory policies need to begin allowing commercial development. Japan, she said, has potential in the creation of small satellites and work with big data and machine learning and has ambitions to be more than a “junior partner” in world space endeavors.

All the student presenters are doctoral students in international studies. Also participating were about two dozen representatives of the space industry, media, government and academia. These included Vulcan Inc., Aerojet Rocketdyne, the Museum of Flight, the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, Washington State University, the state of Washington, the Northwest Science Writers Association and GeekWire.

On hand also, bringing her NASA experience to the discussion, was Earth and space sciences doctoral student , a former astronaut who flew on the space shuttle’s STS-131 mission, April 5 to 20, 2010, a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

After the presentations, Pekkanen led a lively discussion of the challenges the various countries  face as they reach out to space, which touched on history, economics, infrastructure and the Pacific Northwest as a growing hub for space-related industry.

91±¬ÁÏ faculty participating were Pekkanen as well as , research associate professor of Earth and space sciences and associate director of the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium; , Jackson School affiliate professor and principal senior fellow with the Space Security Initiative; and , professor of aeronautics and astronautics.

The Space Security Initiative, called SSI for short, is part of the Jackson School’s , which is funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The initiative works to bridge the gap between academics and practitioners in space and related industries. Starting in April, junior SSI fellows have researched and posted at the Jackson School website.

“Seattle is a new hub for space,” Pekkanen said after the meeting. “And we need to start bringing together all kinds of public and private stakeholders to better understand what is happening here in a global context, and to take the Pacific Northwest forward as space realities change worldwide. So we are taking those initial formative steps with SSI, and we will go from there.”

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For more information about the Space Security Initiative, contact Pekkanen at 206-543-6148 or smp1@uw.edu.