Dr. Togzhan Kassenova is a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, University at Albany, based in Washington, D.C. She is an expert on nuclear politics, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, strategic trade controls, and financial crime prevention. Dr. Kassenova currently works on issues related to proliferation financing controls, exploring ways to minimize access of proliferators to the global financial system. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Leeds (UK). From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Kassenova served on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, and in 2025, she was selected to serve on the UN Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War. Dr. Kassenova is the author of the award-winning Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2022).