Cindy Vestergaard

Cindy Vestergaard is the Senior Fellow and Director of the Converging Technologies and Global Security program. She previously directed the Nuclear Safeguards program (2016 – 2022) and the Blockchain in Practice program (2018 – 2022) and was a Nonresident fellow for both programs in 2023 when she served as Vice President, Special Projects and External Relations at DataTrails.

Before joining Stimson in 2016, Vestergaard was previously a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Prior to DIIS, she worked on non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament policy and programming at Canada’s foreign ministry. Positions among others included Senior Policy Advisor, Global Partnership Program; Senior Policy Advisor, Foreign Intelligence Division; and Political Officer at Canada’s Mission to Hungary and Slovenia.

Vestergaard has been an external lecturer at the University of Copenhagen, a regular contributor to media outlets and presents nationally and internationally on weapons of mass destruction, proliferation and disarmament issues. She has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of British Columbia, M.A. in International Relations and European Studies from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen.

To learn more about how Vestergaard got her start in nuclear safeguards, read her “My Story.”

Projects
Applied research on distributed ledger technology to improve trust, security, and transparency
The international obligations that accompany the global production, trade, and protection of uranium
Exploring and testing distributed ledger technology as an innovative solution to reconciling discrepancies in international trade of dual-use chemicals.
Examining the resiliency of the verification system that underpins the nuclear non-proliferation regime, specifically how emerging facilities, coupled with emerging technologies, challenge and/or enhance the management of safeguards.
DLT for Nuclear Material Accountancy and Control
Research & Writing

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Publications & Project Lists

38 North: News and Analysis on North Korea