Christopher Sharon

Biography

Chris Sharon is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a doctoral fellow at the Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS). His current studies focus on optimization modeling, multi-objective programing, multi-attribute decision analysis, long-term planning, and econometric methods. Sharon's dissertation is focused on analyzing the role of uncertainty in long-term decision making and its applications to Louisiana coastal planning. He has statistical, optimization, and database programming experience and has worked with a variety of data sources including output from predictive models, restricted household survey data, and administrative data.

Sharon's work at RAND has been focused on developing a planning framework to assist Louisiana in both protecting and creating a sustainable and working coast. He has served as the primary modeler for the planning tool that has guided Louisiana's development of a 50-year, $50 billion plan for their coastline. Additionally, he has worked on multiple multidisciplinary project teams on a variety of research issues including disparities in health outcomes, industrial base analysis, diversity management, asset management for retirement, and development of natural gas markets. As part of PRGS, Sharon has served as a teaching assistant for multiple courses including empirical analysis, operations research, and economics of public finance.

Prior to joining RAND in 2007, he earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Samford University and spent time teaching and studying language in Southeast Asia.