Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament
Nuclear Policy and Strategy
Nuclear History
Mackenzie Knight is a Program Associate for Global Risk at the Federation of American Scientists. Her work focuses on the Nuclear Information Project (NIP), where she researches the status and trends of global nuclear forces and nuclear weapons policy and roles. Additionally, Mackenzie helps support and manage the projects of the Global Risk portfolio. Prior to this position, Mackenzie worked at FAS as a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow on the NIP. Her work has been published in Inkstick Media, The Hill, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and has been cited widely, including by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman John Garamendi.
Mackenzie also serves as a Working Group Chair with BASIC’s Emerging Voices Network policy cycle, leading a team to publish a policy paper on Strengthening the Humanitarian Impact Agenda through Civil Society and the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). She is also co-organizer of Gin & Atomics, an informal happy hour network for people in the nuclear space to socialize and build community. In 2023, she was a Youth Delegate to the 2nd Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in New York.
Mackenzie received her MA in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in May 2023. While getting her master’s, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). Mackenzie earned two bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University in 2021: Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and an individualized degree in Policy and Intelligence Analysis with a concentration on WMD. Mackenzie has completed several internships, including as Policy and Communications Intern with the Arms Control Association, Summer Fellow with CNS, and as Analyst Intern with Shephard Media in London.
While many are rightly concerned about Russia’s development of new nuclear-capable systems, fears of substantial nuclear increase may be overblown.
Satellite images show that the Navy has begun construction of a new nuclear weapons storage and handling facility at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
The Sentinel program has been plagued with cost increases, flawed assumptions, and misleading arguments from the beginning; this most recent overrun demands hawk-eyed scrutiny of the program’s next steps.
Analyzing and estimating China’s nuclear forces is challenging, particularly given the relative lack of state-originating data and the tight control of messaging surrounding the country’s nuclear arsenal and doctrine.
Here’s what we learned at the 2nd Meeting of States Parties (MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
In contrast to the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, the Congressionally-mandated Strategic Posture Commission report is a full-throated embrace of a U.S. nuclear build-up.