Robert Hargrove, professor of chemistry and director of the environmental science program at Mercer University, will deliver a speech titled “Chemical and Biological Terrorism: All Hype or A Real Threat?” at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 6 in Whitley Auditorium, located on the Elon campus. Hargrove’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Voices of Discovery Science Speaker Series, sponsored by the departments of Science and Mathematics.
Hargrove will discuss the various chemical and biological agents which could be used in a terrorist attack, as well as the systems required to make and deliver such weapons. He will also discuss different terrorist attack scenarios which could be used with biological or chemical weapons.
A member of the Mercer faculty since 1975, Hargrove has extensive research experience in the field of biological and chemical weapons. From 1986- 1994, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserves, managing the Chemical/Biological Weapons Defense Basic Research Program in Washington, D.C. During his tenure, he also served as commanding officer of the Navy’s Radiological and Chemical Warfare Emergency Response Team in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Hargrove also worked as a visiting scholar in the Intelligence and Verification Bureau of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Washington, D.C. He was part of an interagency group which worked to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, and was a member of the State Department task force in support of the United Nations’ Special Commission on Iraq.
Hargrove’s visit to Elon was scheduled after Charles Norton, a member of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory staff, could not attend because of travel difficulties.
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