RAND Women to Watch
Women have been at the core of RAND's success since its earliest days. The diversity of talent and experience among women at RAND is reflected in the quality and impact of their research. They have developed strategies to help hospitals increase critical care capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic. They've investigated the role of structural racism in shaping economic disparities in labor markets. And their work has addressed complex policy questions such as how to deliver education to Syrian refugees and counter sexual assault and sexual harassment in the U.S. military.
Heather Williams presenting at a CGRS Advisory Board meeting
Photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation
This Month's Woman to Watch
Soo Kim
Policy Analyst
Soo Kim is a policy analyst at RAND and an adjunct instructor at American University. Her research interests include the Korean Peninsula, Russia, Indo-Pacific strategy, near-peer competition, decisionmaking, propaganda, and the intelligence community. She served as an analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency and also worked at the Department of Homeland Security. Kim is a contributor to the Nikkei Asian Review and the Lowy Institute's The Interpreter, and has published articles in The Hill, The Diplomat, The National Interest, and other publications. As in the video below, Kim comments frequently on Korean Peninsula and East Asian issues in international media.
Quoted
Selected Research and Commentary
Our Work Addresses Key Policy Questions About Gender
Gender Equity in the Workplace
Despite gains in recent decades, women continue to receive lower pay, experience lower workforce participation, and may miss career advancement opportunities due to motherhood. RAND's research has examined the challenges and discrimination women face in many settings, as well as the impact of parenting and family life on career outcomes.
Women's Health
Women have unique health needs, and face inequity in both quality and outcomes of health care. RAND's work has highlighted gender gaps in health care access and quality, measured the health needs of specific female populations, evaluated programs aimed at improving outcomes, and demonstrated how policy impacts women's options.
Female Populations
Women and girls face barriers to fully participating in society, including gender-based and intimate-partner violence, sexual assault, unmet health needs, and discrimination. RAND research has examined the needs of women refugees and migrants, gender disparities in health care, the effects of homelessness on women, and the impact of stress on girls.
Notable Women in RAND's History
Rose Gottemoeller
Gottemoeller is an American diplomat who served as Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, the first woman ever appointed to that post. She was a researcher at RAND from 1977 to 1993. Learn more »
Nicole Lurie
Lurie is a physician, professor, and public health official who was appointed as the U.S. director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the global partnership to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics, in May 2021. She previously served as the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response during the Obama administration. While at RAND from 2002 to 2009, she was the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy. Learn more »
Helen Morris
Morris says that working at RAND was the best job she ever had. She joined Project RAND in 1946, then located in the Drafting Loft at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Her work included computing optimum trajectories to go into orbit, calculations for the first RAND report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship. She would become the first woman to receive a physics degree from the University of Washington. Learn more »
Tora Bikson
Bikson was a nationally known advocate for ethics in social science research who worked at RAND from 1974 to 2013. She was among the first experts to address the United States' rules for human subjects protection in research in the social and behavioral sciences. Learn more »
Susan (Sue) Hosek
Hosek was a senior economist who held several leadership roles at RAND and was pivotal in launching the Pittsburgh office. Over her long career, she led or contributed to RAND's most noteworthy studies that sought to improve support for U.S. military personnel, veterans, and their families.
Leona Woods Marshall Libby
Libby was an American physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor. She worked at RAND from the mid-1960s to 1976. Learn more »
Margaret Mead
Mead was an American cultural anthropologist. She studied Russian culture and attitudes toward authority while at RAND from 1948 to 1950. Learn more »
Melinda Moore
Moore's research focused on global health issues, mainly infectious diseases, health security, and public health preparedness. Her extraordinary career included 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five years at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and 14 years at RAND. Learn more »
Nancy Nimitz
Nimitz joined RAND in 1952 and specialized in economic studies of Soviet agriculture. Her work involved research on Soviet national income and product.
Roberta Wohlstetter
Wohlsetter first published at RAND in 1948. She was a military historian best known for her book Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, considered by many to be the definitive analysis of the intelligence failures that led to the attack. Learn more »
Women in Leadership at RAND
Organizational Leadership
- Catherine H. Augustine
- Laura H. Baldwin
- Elizabeth M. Bartels
- Kirsten Becker
- Elizabeth Bodine-Baron
- Jennifer Bouey
- Katherine Grace Carman
- Rebecca L. Collins
- Natalie W. Crawford
- Cheryl L. Damberg
- Emma Disley
- Abby Doll
- Christine Eibner
- Sandra Kay Evans
- Carrie M. Farmer
- Melissa L. Finucane
- Jayme Fuglesten
- Susan M. Gates
- Courtney A. Gidengil
- Celia J. Gomez
- Cynthia Gonzalez
- Susan Guthrie
- Ruth Harris
- Patricia M. Herman
- Sarah B. Hunter
- Lisa H. Jaycox
- Iao M. Katagiri
- Jennifer Kavanagh
- Heather Krull
- Jennifer Sloan McCombs
- Molly F. McIntosh
- Kathleen J. Mullen
- Layla Parast
- Miranda Priebe
- M. Susan Ridgely
- Jeanne S. Ringel
- Jessie Riposo
- Linda Robinson
- Heather L. Schwartz
- Regina A. Shih
- Susan M. Sohler Everingham
- Abbie Tingstad
- Jennie W. Wenger
- Emma Westerman
- Stephanie Young
- Melanie A. Zaber
