Alex Hou is a senior engineer at RAND and served as associate director of the Force Modernization and Employment Program in Project AIR FORCE from January 2023—February 2026. His research interests include force planning, aircraft and weapon system survivability and effectiveness analysis, long-range kill chains, counter-C5ISRT, crewed-uncrewed teaming, autonomous systems, air and missile defense, munitions industrial base, RPA operations and manning, special operations, security force assistance, and aviation foreign internal defense. Previous research spans a broad range of subjects including hypersonic weapons, personnel recovery in A2/AD environments, U.S. air operations in Africa, assessing the effectiveness of AFSOC train-advise-assist missions, protecting the military utility of space systems, and assessing the homeland security implications of publicly available geospatial information. Alex served as Project AIR FORCE's full-time on-site representative in AF/A8XZ providing analytic support to the Air Staff during the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. Prior to joining RAND, Alex worked as an analyst in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office. He has also served as a special assistant in the Office of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff developing assessments of technology programs. Hou holds S.M. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and in Technology and Policy and a S.B. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.
M.S. in science, tech & public policy, MIT; M.S. in aero/astro engineering, MIT; B.S. in aero/astro engineering, MIT
