Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley

Organization and management of weapons programs; tacit knowledge and weapons development; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) terrorism, ethics and science; WMD export controls; WMD-related trafficking in the former Soviet states; sanctions and proliferation financing; bioweapons dissuasion.

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is an associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She holds affiliations with Mason's Biodefense Program, Center for Global Studies, and the Department of History and Art History’s Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) program. 

Prior to joining the Mason faculty in 2008, Ben Ouagrham-Gormley was a senior research associate with the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). While at CNS, she spent two years at the CNS Almaty office in Kazakhstan, where she served as director of research. She also was the founding editor-in-chief of the International Export Control Observer, a monthly publication focusing on proliferation developments and export controls around the globe. From 2004 to 2008, she was an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Ben Ouagrham-Gormley has conducted research and written on such topics as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons proliferation, organization and management of weapons programs, WMD trafficking in states of the former Soviet Union, biosecurity and bioterrorism, bio-dissuasion, export controls, defense industry conversion, transfer mechanisms of WMD expertise, and redirection of WMD experts. She has received several grants from the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy, as well as from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Carnegie Corporation of New York to conduct research on WMD proliferation and contribute to remediation programs such as the DOD-funded Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

She received her PhD in development economics from the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris; a graduate degree in strategy and defense policy from the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Paris; a master’s degree in applied foreign languages (triple major in economics, law, and foreign languages—Russian and English) from the University of Paris X-Nanterre, and a dual undergraduate degree in applied foreign languages and English Literature from the University of Paris X-Nanterre. She is fluent in French, English, Russian, and spoken Arabic, and possesses beginner competence in Kazakh.

View Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley's CV

Areas of Research

• Arms Control and Nonproliferation
• Biodefense
• Ethics and Weapons Development
• Former Soviet States
• Health and Security
• Illicit Trade
• International Security
• Knowledge Management
• Qualitative Methods
• Science and Technology Studies
• Weapons of Mass Destruction