Zia Mian is a physicist and co-director of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, part of the School of Public and International Affairs, where he has worked since 1997.
Previously, he was a research fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists (1996-1997). His research interests include issues of nuclear arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament, and international peace and security. Mian is co-editor of Science & Global Security, the international peer-reviewed technical journal of arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament, and also co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) and a co-founder of the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.
He received the 2014 Linus Pauling Legacy Award for “his accomplishments as a scientist and as a peace activist in contributing to the global effort for nuclear disarmament and for a more peaceful world.” In 2018, he was selected as one of the “60 faces of CND” by the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to mark its 60th anniversary. He received the American Physical Society’s 2019 Leo Szilard Award "For promoting global peace and nuclear disarmament particularly in South Asia, through academic research, public speaking, technical and popular writing and organizing efforts to ban nuclear weapons." In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for “promoting global nuclear risk reduction and disarmament through academic research, public speaking, technical and popular writing, and organizing efforts.”
Mian served on the Board of the Arms Control Association from 2015 to 2023. In 2022, he was appointed to the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.
Photo credit: Gudrun Georges