Togzhan Kassenova is an associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow. She specializes in weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation issues, with a regional focus on Central Asia and Southeast Asia; nuclear security; strategic trade management; and civilian nuclear energy programs.

Kassenova serves on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Fissile Material Working Group and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.

Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Kassenova worked as a senior research associate at the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security in Washington, D.C., as a postdoctoral fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and as an adjunct faculty member at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She was previously a journalist and professor in Kazakhstan.

Kassenova is the author of From Antagonism to Partnership: The Uneasy Path of the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction (2007). She has published widely in scholarly and policy journals, including Nonproliferation Review, Disarmament Forum, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly.

Kassenova is a native of Kazakhstan.

Education

B.A., international studies, Almaty State University; M.A., Euro-Asian studies, University of Reading; Ph.D., politics, University of Leeds

Languages

English; Mandarin Chinese; Russian

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Environmental Policy, Energy Security, Energy, Environment,