Lisbeth Gronlund is a co-director of the Global Security Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an ostensibly independent, nonprofit environmental and national security advocacy organization comprised of more than 100,000 members whose stated purpose is to build a “cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world.” The UCS takes public stands, purportedly buttressed by scientific research, regarding a variety of political and health-related issues. For example, it opposes genetically engineered foods, condemns SUV vehicles, and proposes measures aimed at combating what it deems the imminent dangers of global warming. It also opposes the vast majority of American foreign policy decisions, calls for a unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles, and derides American efforts to develop a National Missile Defense (NMD) system. The UCS disseminates to lawmakers and news outlets its opinions about each of these matters, with the intent of ultimately influencing public policy.

Gronlund did her postdoctoral work at the MIT Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, and was a Social Science Research Council – MacArthur Foundation Fellow in International Peace and Security at the University of Maryland’s Center for International Security Studies.

Along with Global Security Program co-director David Wright, Gronlund is in the vanguard of the effort to derail the development of NMD technology. Gronlund and Wright are also the principal organizers of the UCS’s International Summer Symposiums on Science and World Affairs, which aim to “encourage and support the development of young scientists working on policy-oriented research on international security and arms control issues.” In reality, these Symposiums serve as a recruiting tool to enlist international students to condemn U.S. policies around the world.