Thao (Liz) Nguyen is associate director of the Immigration and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division (HSRD). She is a senior physical scientist with expertise in national and homeland security, requirements, and acquisition, and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on emerging technology integration in security enterprises, AI implementation and governance for public-sector operational missions, analytic methods for evaluating screening and detection capabilities, and requirements, acquisition, and capability development for complex government systems. She has led or conducted projects for the Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Air Force, Department of the Army, Department of Commerce, and USTRANSCOM on topics including biological threat detection, countering weapons of mass destruction, border security and immigration-related operations, national preparedness and disaster resilience, and homeland and national security technology applications.
Nguyen's scientific expertise includes the functionalization, synthesis, fabrication, application, and measurement of inorganic, metallic, and polymer-based nanomaterials. She was a postdoctoral research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Maryland.
Ph. D. in chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park; B.S. in chemistry, Lafayette College
Vietnamese
Associate Program Director, HSRD, Management, Technology, & Capabilities (MTC) Program
