Experts in the News | Miller Center

In Memoriam: Henry Abraham, brilliant judicial scholar and legendary lecturer

Barbara Perry, a professor who directs the Presidential Studies project at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and was a doctoral student of Abraham’s in the 1980s, said Abraham didn’t judge people based on their politics, ideology, religion, race or gender. He was not only a brilliant scholar and lecturer, she said, but also an incredible listener and one of the nicest people you’d ever meet.

Barbara Perry

Coronavirus death rate is 3.4%, World Health Organization says, Trump says 'hunch' tells him that's wrong

Chris Lu, a former staff member for President Barack Obama, said "this kind of irresponsible talk creates a false sense of security that endangers public health." Other analysts said Trump is echoing a point made by health officials – the fatality rate may be inflated because some cases are not being reported.

Chris Lu

Aynne Kokas on the Chinese movie industry

Prior to 2017, the top grossing films were Hollywood studio films. The majority of films in the top 10 were also Hollywood studio films. What is really interesting is that, in the past year, in addition to having the top three films in the Chinese market, the top eight of the top 10 films were also Chinese. There were only two Hollywood studio films in the top 10, which is a really significant shift from the past.

Aynne Kokas

How a failed strategy by Southern states became Super Tuesday

The first Super Tuesday as we now know it occurred in 1988 when 14 Southern states decided to hold their primaries on the same day in an attempt to ensure the election of a more moderate candidate from the South, said Jennifer Lawless, a professor at the University of Virginia.

Jennifer Lawless

Health officials tell Donald Trump that coronavirus vaccine is at least a year away

"If Trump is going to successfully manage this crisis, he'll have to change his approach to governing – so far, there's no indication he's willing to do that," said Chris Lu, who managed President Barack Obama's first-term Cabinet.

Chris Lu

Misunderstanding the bomb: How we've learned the wrong lessons about nuclear deterrence and arms control

The Cold War nuclear arms race presents a puzzle. Why would states, even fierce rivals like the United States and the Soviet Union, keep building nuclear weapons after they each had the ability to blow up the world several times over? Yet this is exactly what the superpowers did during the second half of the Cold War. Moscow and Washington waged a fierce nuclear competition featuring ever more innovative weapons and war plans that were as baroque and complicated as they were ferocious and aggressive. Even more strikingly, each side waged this competition while investing enormous effort in arms control negotiations. As great power rivalry returns to the forefront of world politics, the same incentives that produced the late Cold War nuclear arms race may well arise again. Understanding the Cold War’s lessons about the bomb could be critical to managing nuclear dangers today.

Todd Sechser