RAND Women to Watch

Mahshid Abir during a shift at Michigan Medicine, photo by Cecile Hollinshead

Mahshid Abir during a shift at Michigan Medicine

Photo by Cecile Hollinshead

Women have been at the core of RAND's success since its earliest days. The diversity of talent and experience among women at RAND—in both research and leadership—is reflected in the quality and impact of our work. From providing evidence that informs the debate over health care reform, to quantifying the benefits of prisoner education, or providing insights into counterterrorism strategies, women at RAND are tackling our most complex policy questions.

Heather Williams presenting at a CGRS Advisory Board meeting, October 24, 2019, photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation

Heather Williams presenting at a CGRS Advisory Board meeting

Photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation

This Month's Woman to Watch

Linda Robinson

Linda Robinson

Director, Center for Middle East Public Policy; Senior International/Defense Researcher

Linda Robinson is director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy and a senior policy researcher at RAND. She is a noted book author, frequent public speaker, and a prize-winning former foreign correspondent with 30 years of experience in international affairs and national security. Her research and journalism have taken her around the world, including on extensive sojourns in the Middle East and South Asia. She has testified before Congress on Iraq multiple times. In the following video, she gives an overview of her recent testimony, Special Operations Forces Culture and Climate: The Future of the Force.

Quoted

The Future of the Special Operations Forces

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 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

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