Chris Spedding is a Policy Fellow and Manager at BASIC, where he manages the Technological Risk programme.

Policy Fellow
Nuclear Disarmament | Emerging and Disruptive Technologies | Multilateral Governance
Dr Lyndon Burford is a Policy Fellow in the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at BASIC and Project Manager of the Nuclear Transparency Index (NUTRI). His research focuses on the relationships between nuclear politics and multilateral treaties, nuclear weapons postures and practices, and emerging and/or disruptive technologies like AI. He served as an advisor on the delegation of Aotearoa-New Zealand to the ninth NPT Review Conference in 2015.
For 2024-27, Lyndon is also a Constructive Advanced Thinking Fellow with the European Network of Institutes for Advanced Studies, working on a collaborative research project, “Theories of Change for Nuclear Disarmament”. This interdisciplinary partnership seeks to advance the logically coherent and empirically grounded theorisation of nuclear disarmament.
Lyndon has a PhD in international relations from the University of Auckland, Aotearoa-New Zealand. He has published chapters on nuclear policy and (forthcoming, 2025) nuclear history, research articles in Global Change, Peace and Security and The Nonproliferation Review (where his essay was awarded the McElvany Prize from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey), and a range of research reports and newspaper and magazine articles on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, nuclear verification, and distributed ledger technologies.
Before joining BASIC, Lyndon was a consultant to the FutureSafe programme of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; a postdoctoral fellow at King’s College London; a research associate with the Horizon 2045 initiative; and a blockchain advisor on the New Technologies for Peace working group of the Vatican COVID-19 Commission.
Languages: English, French
Our dedicated and professional team brings a diversity of expertise, approaches and perspectives. Meet its members below.
Chris Spedding is a Policy Fellow and Manager at BASIC, where he manages the Technological Risk programme.
Chiara Cervasio is a Policy Fellow, working on the Nuclear Responsibilities Programme.
Eva-Nour Repussard is a Policy Fellow, working on the Nuclear Responsibilities programme.
Dave Cullen is a Policy Fellow at BASIC and Programme Manager of our Emerging Voices Network.
Laura Rose Brown is a Policy Fellow at BASIC and PhD student at the University of Leeds.
Alice Spilman is a Researcher on the Programme on Nuclear Responsibilities with BASIC and the ICCS, University of Birmingham.
Anahita Parsa is a Policy Fellow, working on the Nuclear Responsibilities and Inclusive International Security programmes.
Read more about our main contributors and browse their latest content and publications.
Nick researches and teaches in the areas of international relations and international security at the University of York. His particular…
A. Vinod Kumar is Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), and a Visiting Faculty at the Institute of…
Norman Moss is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He was born in London in 1928 but was raised and educated partly in New York.
Anthony V. Rinna is a Senior Editor with Sino-NK, a research organization dedicated to analyzing Northeast Asia. Formerly trained as an…
Rebecca Cousins was BASIC’s Programme Director for the Next Gen project. Prior to that, she was a diplomat in the British Foreign and…
Rachel Staley Grant joined NTI in August 2016 and serves as the Director of Public Education. Between 2011 and 2016, Staley Grant…
Ted Seay is an independent arms control and disarmament consultant currently based in London. He was assigned to the U.S. Mission to…
Dr Ian Kearns is the co-Founder of the European Leadership Network and serves on the ELN’s Board of Directors. Dr Kearns served as…
Anne Penketh was BASIC Program Director in Washington from 2009 to 2012. Previously she was a staff journalist with major media…
Tim recently completed his PhD exploring the politics of nuclear disarmament at Warwick University as part of a collaborative…
Lianet Vazquez was the Herbert Scoville Jr Peace Fellow at BASIC in 2014.
Tabitha Sanders is one of the organisers of #NatSecGirlSquad, a US initiative to support women working in National Security. She was a…
Nina Sofie Pedersen is a Researcher at BASIC. Her current responsibilities include researching and developing the Programme on…
Sir John Thomson was a British Diplomat who was High Commissioner to India and Ambassador to the UN. He served as adviser to BASIC.
Christina Pena was BASIC’s Analyst and Programme Manager.
Dr Ian Davis is an independent human security and arms control consultant, writer and founding director of NATO Watch…