MENACS members attend and present at CTBTO Science & Technology Conference

As members of the CTBT Youth Group, four MENACS experts (shown here from left to right), Tiara ShayaRana Hameed Al-AbboodiFarnaz Alimehri, and Karim El-Baz, attended the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO) Science & Technology conference in Vienna, Austria, from June 26-30, 2017. The conference series provides a forum for scientists from around the world to exchange knowledge and share advances in monitoring and verification technologies of relevance to the CTBT.

MENACS participants had the opportunity to meet with the CTBTO’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Lassina Zerbo, to discuss the role the CTBT Youth Group can play in strengthening the treaty and bringing it close to implementation.

Rana Hameed Al-Abboodi, a Seismic Data Analyst at the National Data Centre (NDC) of Iraq, explained her work on the benefits of the CTBT to Iraq, from the establishment of the NDC, to the donations of capacity building equipment and the advantages of NDC data. Rana has become an expert at analyzing seismic data thanks to CTBT training programs.

Karim El-Baz, an Egyptian expert on civil-military relations, presented his paper on a new approach to encourage the CTBT Middle East holdouts – Egypt, Israel, and Iran – to join the treaty through a series of incremental confidence building measures. You can find his presentation in the video below.