Kurt Klein

Photo of Kurt Klein
Assistant Policy Researcher; Ph.D. Candidate, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Santa Monica Office

Education

M.P.P., University of California, Los Angeles; B.S. in physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Overview

Kurt Klein is an assistant policy researcher at RAND and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research interests include defense planning, nuclear issues, terrorism, violent extremism, infrastructure planning, and climate resilience and adaptation. His dissertation applies robust decision-making methodology to power infrastructure planning to mitigate risk from magnetohydrodynamic electromagnetic pulse. 

His recent research analyzes episodes of mass targeted violence in the United States, the impact of geographic and environmental trends on future defense planning, and the implications for the Air Force of the termination of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. He is the author, with the staff of the JustJobs Network, of The Changing Climate of Livelihoods: Case Studies from Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia and has shared his recommendations with governments, labor unions, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations. 

Klein has an M.P.P. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.S. in physics from the University of Michigan.

Research Focus

Publications