UIUC Professor Charles Osgood’s Alternative to War and Surrender (Osgood 1962), published by University of Illinois Press, outlined a strategy that eventually used to cap and partly roll back the USSR/NATO nuclear arms race. Inspired by this publication, University of Illinois professors Arthur Chilton, Edward Kolodziej, and Stephen Cohen founded ACDIS.
Arthur Chilton
ACDIS Director 1978-1983, Professor in Nuclear Engineering. Set a precedent for an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship on security problems by integrating the contributions from UIUC’s College of Engineering with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ACDIS.
Edward Kolodziej
ACDIS Director 1983-1986, Professor in Political Science Initiated a long-standing National Defense Fellows program for U.S. Air Force majors and lieutenant colonels.
Jeremiah Sullivan
ACDIS Director 1986-1994, Professor in Physics Established ACDIS as a national presence providing critical information about arms control and disarmament through reports with the American Physical Society and the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment.
Stephen Cohen
Established ACDIS as an international presence by bringing mid-career professionals from India, Pakistan, China, and other countries together to discuss security issues through the longest running continuous series of Fort Foundation grants of its kind
Clifford Singer
ACDIS Director, 1998-2006 and 2015-2018, Professor Emeritus in Nuclear Engineering Enhanced ACDIS as a national and international force through influential conferences and articles on arms control and nuclear arms reduction.
Julian Palmore
ACDIS Director, 2006-2008, Professor in Mathematics Continued ACDIS projects about international security issues.
Colin Flint
ACDIS Director, 2008-2010, Professor in Geography. Reinstated ACDIS’ tradition of providing well-researched background information to the national policymaking process through reports that informed government staff about spent nuclear fuel and other security issues.
Edward Kolodziej
Interim ACDIS Director, 2011-2016, Professor Emeritus in Political Science. Strengthened outreach toward undergraduate education with a series of on-campus “teach-ins,” summer workshops, and the Undergraduate Certificate in Global Security.
Matthias Grosse Perdekamp
ACDIS Director, 2018-present, Director of the Physics Department