Joseph Cirincione is the President of the Ploughshares Fund, a public grant-making foundation focused on nuclear weapons policy and conflict resolution, a role in which he has served since March 2008.

Cirincione had previously served as vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, and for eight years as the director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia University Press, 2007) and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats (Carnegie Endowment, second edition 2006) and the co-author of Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Carnegie Endowment, 2005) and "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications" (Carnegie Endowment, 2003). He is on the adjunct faculty of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In advance of the 2008 presidential campaign, Cirincione served an informal adviser to then Senator Barack Obama's campaign, focusing his work on nuclear matters.

Cirincione has chaired and organized five of the annual Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conferences, considered the premier event in the field. He worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a professional staff member of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations, and served as staff director of the bipartisan Military Reform Caucus. Cirincione is an expert advisor to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States,and serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism.

He lectures around the world on nuclear policy and is widely published in the field with over 200 articles to his credit.

This event took place on March 6, 2009 in Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters.