Name: Zachary Kallenborn
Home Institution: University of Puget Sound
Major: Mathematics and Political Science & Government
CNS Project: Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program 

“My internship at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies was a great experience. It seemed like almost every day I met and learned from some new and fascinating expert in the field of nonproliferation or a related area. When I wasn’t doing that, I was working in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Program where I conducted in-depth research on chemical weapons dumped at sea. My task was to hunt down information about the location and contents of the various dump sites, a task that required me to work with former military personnel, members of the press, and others. I also wrote/edited synopses of various public-health disasters involving chemical agents for use in a training and evaluation survey tool to help local, county, state, and federal responders respond to large-scale incidents.

In addition to my work, my days typically featured a lecture or two from either an expert with the Center or a visiting scholar. These lectures ran the gamut of nonproliferation issues — one day we might talk about passive methods of detecting nuclear material and the next we might discuss what it means for a group to be considered a “terrorist organization”. These talks did not take place in crowded lecture halls, but rather in small seminar rooms usually with only us interns in attendance. In this way, we were not just passively absorbing fascinating information, but had the opportunity to constantly ask questions and further discuss the issues.”