Michael J. Gaines

Mike Gaines is a doctoral candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy analyst at RAND. He holds a B.A. in History from the University of Memphis, an MS in Logistics Management from the Florida Institute of Technology, and an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. Prior to joining RAND, Mike worked as a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton fulfilling a Defense Intelligence Agency contract in Stuttgart, Germany. Prior to that position, Mike worked as a Diplomatic Security Special Agent at the US Department of State in Washington, D.C. Mike was also a Marine veteran with ten years of active service and 23 years of total service. Mike has experience in national security, strategic and operational level intelligence, and he recently began working towards a secondary education teaching license. Mike’s research interests include addressing socio-economic disparities (education, opportunity, financial, judicial and policing equity; etc.) in heterogeneous societies, countering terrorism and insurgencies, gun violence and prevention; conflict prevention, mitigation, and/or domination, and generalizing stable outcomes in social interactions.