Biography

Terrence Kelly is a senior researcher at RAND, where his primary research areas are counterinsurgency, security force assistance, and nation-building, with particular expertise in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently leading a research project to examine Security Force Assistance for Afghanistan, and served in the summer of 2009 on General Stanley McChrystal's assessment team.

From February 2006 to April 2007, Kelly served as director of the Joint Strategic Planning and Assessment Office in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In 2004, he was the director for Militia Transition and Reintegration Programs for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, where he developed policies and programs to demobilize militias, and negotiated agreements with several major Iraqi militia leaders. He also served as the Senior National Security Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, held many Army field and staff positions, was a White House fellow, and served as the Chief of Staff of the National Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office. Kelly has held faculty positions in West Point's System Engineering Department and the Mathematical Sciences Department (visiting) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and as an Adjunct Professor of Security Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Public Policy and Management.

Kelly holds a B.S. from the United States Military Academy, West Point; an M.A. in strategic studies from U.S. Army War College; and an M.S. in computer and systems engineering and Ph.D. in mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.