This academic year, I had the opportunity to be the undergraduate research advisor of Isobel Porteous, who just published her honors thesis:
Porteous, I.;
Verifying the Outer Space Treaty's Nuclear Ban: Technical and Political Feasibility of In-Space Satellite Inspection:
Stanford Digital Repository, 2025.
She is the first student in the Stanford Aero/Astro department to ever join the honors program of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Her thesis was just awarded the prestigious William J. Perry Prize, named after former Stanford professor and CISAC co-director Bill Perry, who later became Secretary of Defense and gave longstanding contributions to space and security as well as peace and arms control.
Isobel Porteous’s work is a bold and timely response to a pressing question: how do we verify the Outer Space Treaty’s ban on nuclear weapons in orbit?
To find out, she taught herself how to simulate X-ray radiography, gamma spectroscopy, and satellite formation flying (obviously)—engineering tools rarely found in arms control research. Then she turned to Cold War archives, mining declassified documents to uncover why the treaty was left unverifiable in the first place.
The result is a rare blend of technical rigor and historical insight that points the way toward future space arms control. Isobel’s intellectual range, initiative, and clarity of purpose exemplify what an Aerospace Engineer is all about!
Thank you Isobel Porteous for picking me as your advisor and to Harold Trinkunas for the great CISAC program. Kudos!
