Jessica West

Dr. Jessica West is a Senior Researcher at Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace and security research institute where her work is focused on technology, security, and governance in outer space. She has held this position since 2015, and previously worked there on space security and nuclear disarmament issues as a Project Officer (2006-2009).

As part of her work at Project Ploughshares, Jessica served as the Program Manager of the international research consortia responsible for the Space Security Index project for seven years, and as Managing Editor for the 2007-2009 and 2016-2019 publications. She interacts regularly with key United Nations bodies tasked with space security and sustainability issues including the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), the Conference on Disarmament, the UN First Committee on International Security and Disarmament, and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Her work has been presented at various international conferences including the Secure World Foundation Sustainability Summit, the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference, the Observer Research Foundation’s Kaplana Chawla Annual Space Dialogue, and the International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

Recently, Jessica has concluded a significant research effort to identify and map existing values, principles, and norms in outer space and identifying opportunities for advancing international security related norms, with funding from the Canadian Department of National Defence’s MINDS program (Mobilizing Insights in National Security). She currently has a second research grant to extend this work with a study of lessons learned from other domains of arms control and their applicability to outer space.