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Lyndon Burford portrait image

Dr Lyndon Burford

Visiting Research Associate

Research interests

  • Conflict
  • Security

Biography

Lyndon Burford is a Visiting Research Associate at the Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS), where he studies the politics, technologies and theories of nuclear disarmament, deterrence, arms control and risk. Lyndon is a blockchain adviser on the New Technologies for Peace working group, part of the Vatican’s COVID-19 Commission. From 2018-2020, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at CSSS, helping to develop options to advance multilateral nuclear disarmament. His PhD thesis looked at the relationship between national identity and nuclear disarmament policy in Canada and New Zealand. In 2015, he was an advisor to the New Zealand delegation at the 2015 NPT Review Conference and in 2011, he won the McElvany Prize from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, for his essay on a user-pays model for nuclear risk reduction.

From 2009-18, Lyndon was a New Zealand academic representative on the WMD study group of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. From 2009-15, he was a member of the Pacific Forum CSIS Young Leaders programme. He has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Auckland, an MA in Political Science from the University of Canterbury (NZ), and a BA in Russian Studies from the University of Otago. In addition to blockchain and nuclear policy work, Lyndon is passionate about film, having studied film history and theory. He has worked on studio films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the BBC’s Lost World and has co-produced several short documentaries and educational videos. Lyndon speaks French, as well as conversational Russian and Spanish.

Research

  • Blockchain and global security
  • Nuclear disarmament
  • Nuclear deterrence in the 21st century
  • Nuclear risk and risk education

Lyndon is interested in the political, technological and theoretical dynamics that link nuclear, disarmament, deterrence, arms control and risk. He is currently exploring how blockchain technology could create opportunities to increase international cooperation on global security challenges.

Publications

Book chapters

  • “Australia, New Zealand and the Cuban Missile Crisis” (with Laura Stanley), chapter in The Nuclear Crisis of 1962: Inaugural Crisis of the Age of Global Nuclear Vulnerability?, ed. Benoît Pelopidas [currently under peer review with Johns Hopkins University Press].
  • New Zealand and Disarmament: Where National and Global Interests Converge (with Kate Dewes), chapter in Small States and the Changing Global Order: New Zealand Faces the Future, ed. Anne-Marie Brady (Cham: Springer, 2019).

Research reports

Journal articles

Commentaries

Video

  • The Global Nuclear Arsenal 2020 (60 seconds), produced in collaboration with the Nuclear Knowledges research programme, Sciences Po, Paris, August 5, 2020.

Research

AdobeStock_271737277
Disarmament and Deterrence

Strengthening cooperation on nuclear arms control, disarmament and risk reduction through a multi-stakeholder approach to policy research and outreach

Project status: Completed

Nuclear Bridge Building

This research explores opportunities for bridge-building between nuclear possessors and non-possessors, TPNW supporters and opponents, and states and NGOs.

Project status: Ongoing

Events

18Novabstract-1278077_1920

Blockchain in nuclear disarmament and arms control verification

A new voices seminar with Lyndon Burford

Please note: this event has passed.

Research

AdobeStock_271737277
Disarmament and Deterrence

Strengthening cooperation on nuclear arms control, disarmament and risk reduction through a multi-stakeholder approach to policy research and outreach

Project status: Completed

Nuclear Bridge Building

This research explores opportunities for bridge-building between nuclear possessors and non-possessors, TPNW supporters and opponents, and states and NGOs.

Project status: Ongoing

Events

18Novabstract-1278077_1920

Blockchain in nuclear disarmament and arms control verification

A new voices seminar with Lyndon Burford

Please note: this event has passed.