RAND Women to Watch
Anita Chandra at the Pardee RAND Board of Governors meeting, November 2019
Photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation
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.
Julia Kaufman at the Pardee RAND Board of Governors meeting, November 2019
Photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation
This Month's Woman to Watch
Jennifer Sloan McCombs
Senior Policy Researcher; Research Department Director, Behavioral and Policy Sciences Department
Jennifer McCombs is a senior policy researcher who evaluates the extent to which public policies and programs improve outcomes for at-risk children and youth. Her studies provide practitioners and policymakers guidance on how to improve programs and promote positive outcomes. She has studied educator effectiveness, school improvement, test-based promotion policies, and out-of-school programs. She is currently leading a longitudinal study of five urban districts' summer learning programs. In the interview below, she discusses how what is known about summer learning loss might guide educators and parents while schools are closed during the pandemic.
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 NATO's Deputy Secretary General, the first woman ever appointed to that post. She was a researcher at RAND from 1977 to 1993. 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 »
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
Helen Morris 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, a nationally known advocate for ethics in social science research, 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 »
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 »
Women in Leadership at RAND
Organizational Leadership
- Anita Chandra
- Allison Elder
- Jennifer Gould
- Susan L. Marquis
- V. Darleen Opfer
- Melissa Rowe
- Sally Sleeper
- Catherine H. Augustine
- Laura H. Baldwin
- Kirsten Becker
- Sandra H. Berry
- Katherine Grace Carman
- Christine Eibner
- Susan S. Sohler Everingham
- Carrie M. Farmer
- Jayme Fuglesten
- Susan M. Gates
- Courtney A. Gidengil
- Laura S. Hamilton
- Lisa H. Jaycox
- Iao M. Katagiri
- Jennifer Kavanagh
- Dalia Dassa Kaye
- Heather Krull
- Jennifer Sloan McCombs
- Robin Meili
- Kathleen J. Mullen
- Shanthi Nataraj
- Stacie L. Pettyjohn
- Miranda Priebe
- M. Susan Ridgely
- Jeanne S. Ringel
- Jessie Riposo
- Heather L. Schwartz
- Regina A. Shih
- Jennie W. Wenger
- Emma Westerman
- Christine Wormuth