Amal Altwaijri

Amal Altwaijri is a Ph.D. student in the Research, Analysis, and Design stream at Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy researcher at RAND. She has a dual M.A. in international relations and international economics with a minor in strategic studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.S. in finance from Alfaisal University.

Before joining RAND, Altwaijri worked at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., where she advised on political and economic affairs and engaged with the U.S. government, Congress, and the private sector on strategic matters relating to Saudi-U.S. relations and the greater Middle East. Previously, she held several government research posts with a multidisciplinary research portfolio covering a variety of national and international policy priorities using multivariate statistical analytics and qualitative methods. 

Altwaijri also worked in the private sector as an assistant researcher at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS), focusing on the comparative practices of financial markets and their adaptation to green finance, particularly in oil-dependent states. She also worked in investment banking through several positions and internships in entities such as the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), HSBC, and the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA).

Altwaijri's research broadly focuses on geopolitical and geo-economic strategic competition in an era of interdependence; and narrowly on long-term capability planning, the interplay between domestic and international policy priorities, economic reform, and measures of social mobility, with a regional focus on the Middle East and the U.S. engagement in it.