Young Voices in International Security: Kylie Jones

NTI’s “Young Voices” series highlights early-career professionals making their mark as part of the community of experts tackling today’s existential threats. This series reflects NTI’s commitment to uplift a range of voices and ideas, help break down stereotypes that contribute to generational divides on security and give a platform to young people to share creative ideas that address the evolving threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and disruption.

Cara Wilson, NTI’s Nuclear Materials Security intern, had the chance to speak with Kylie Jones, a researcher with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program and a former James C. Gaither Junior Fellow. For the last two years, she has organized Carnegie’s New Voices, New Ideas conference, which is dedicated to empowering and uplifting diverse voices in the next generation of nuclear experts. She has interned at Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Partnership for Global Security. In the fall, Kylie will be a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University, pursuing a master’s in international policy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to pursue a career in nuclear issues?  

I didn’t grow up seeing myself researching nuclear weapons for a living. But I gained an interest in international relations in college, so I joined Model UN. I was assigned to research the establishment of a nuclear weapon–free zone in the Middle East for a conference at the end of the year. I enjoyed it so much that I would find myself still wanting to work on my nuclear weapons research during my classes.

I ended up winning a research award at that conference, and I took it as a sign that this is the kind of thing that I could spend my career doing. Then one of my professors recommended I apply to the James C. Gaither Junior Fellows Program at Carnegie for their nuclear policy program. I gave it a shot, ended up getting the fellowship, and then from there, it’s been kind of a snowball.

Earlier this summer, you helped organize Carnegie’s second annual New Voices, New Ideas conference. What lessons have you learned about bringing new voices into traditionally non-diverse fields? 

While creating the New Voices conference, we were very intentional about outreach. We worked specifically with organizations centered around bringing people from underrepresented communities into the conversation. I also reached into my personal network of professors who are either from underrepresented communities or are involved in uplifting those voices. The first lesson is definitely that the way you do outreach is one of the most important ways to foster a diverse community for events.

The first year we did the conference we did great with achieving gender diversity and racial diversity. But a challenge we didn’t quite anticipate was geographic diversity. If you’re in D.C. interning or working, there’s already a level of privilege that you have, and we wanted to give access to this space to people that would not have access otherwise. This year we partnered with four universities to sponsor some of their students to attend the conference. My hope is that in the future we get more funding and can sponsor more students from across the country. So, that was one of the unanticipated lessons—we didn’t think enough about how geography would be an additional accessibility barrier.

What do you see the next generation of experts bringing to the table in the nuclear policy world? What do you hope we can accomplish?

That’s an exciting question! I think the emerging generation has a fresh batch of hope, optimism, and zeal for what we can achieve in the nuclear policy field. I also think that the emerging generation of nuclear researchers and practitioners are living in a very different world than the scholars who developed much of the nuclear deterrence or nuclear policy infrastructure. There’s a lot of space for new takes on old issues, which presents a lot of opportunities for people to bring new perspectives to the table.

How do you approach communicating complex nuclear policy issues to a broader audience? How do you think that those of us in the field can make nuclear issues more salient for the public and policymakers, who, for instance think nuclear proliferation is a problem of the past? 

It’s something that I grapple with because nuclear policy and nuclear theory are taught with a specific vernacular. That’s one of the biggest accessibility obstacles because we’re using these big techno-scientific terms, which excludes people.

I’m the only one in my family or in my friend group who works on nuclear issues. And with Oppenheimer being a big thing last year, I was fielding a lot of questions. Going back to what motivated me to get into the field is very useful in communicating what I do to other people. So, I try to explain nuclear issues in a way that would have made sense to me when I was first getting into the field.

Which hobbies, habits, or support networks keep you going when nuclear research gets stressful? 

I have a lot of hobbies! In general, I just love to tell stories. I love to write short stories and poems. I love to paint as well—I think of making art as just another way of telling stories!

I’m very privileged to be able to spend my time researching an existential issue like nuclear weapons. A lot of people aren’t able to pause their daily struggles and think about something that’s quite abstract and not as immediate. I would love the opportunity to use my love of storytelling and my intellectual pursuits of nuclear policy to speak for those who don’t have the same privileges I do.

Young Voices Creative Spotlight: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Kylie chose this short story to spotlight because it reflects her mindset for pursuing nuclear policy work. Mirroring the plot of the short story, she explains, “Now that I am aware of the ways nuclear infrastructure rests on the exploitation of communities and doing harm to humanity, I can either choose to step away and say I’m okay with that and continue to live my life, or I can spend my life trying to make an impact.”