Bush School To Host 5th Annual Texas Women, Peace, And Security Symposium

A diverse range of accomplished women will gather on the Texas A&M University campus on Friday, Nov. 15 to discuss the links between women, development and national security at the annual Texas Women, Peace, and Security Symposium.

This year’s symposium, hosted by the Program on Women, Peace, and Security at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, will feature panels on global development and women’s economic empowerment, Texas perspectives on women, development and security, and new research on women, peace and security.

The symposium will be held Nov. 15 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. Those who wish to attend should register at the Bush School website.

The fifth year of the annual symposium will feature retired Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as its keynote speaker. Abercrombie-Winstanley is also founder of The Leadership Council of Women in National Security. Other featured speakers and panelists include Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, founder of the International Civil Society Action Network; Lyric Thompson of the International Center for Research on Women; Catherine Bertini, winner of the 2003 World Food Prize and former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Management; Elsa Murano of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture; Radhika Prabhu, executive director of the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council; Dyan Gibbens, CEO of Trumbull Unmanned; Claire Harvey, CEO of Gryphon Oil and Gas; Laura Schilling, president of Pumpco Services, Inc.; and the 2019 Bush School Women, Peace, and Security Capstone Team.

The women, peace, and security field developed out of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, and emphasizes the inclusion of women in peace negotiations and national security analyses. The director of the Bush School’s Program on Women, Peace, and Security, Valerie Hudson, has published numerous studies demonstrating the empirical relationships between women’s physical security, women’s equality within the home, and state peacefulness and stability.