Angela (Angel) O'Mahony is a senior political scientist at RAND, and senior advisor to the dean and professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
O'Mahony has led RAND research projects examining security cooperation and defense posture, forecasting conflict trends, assessing multinational interoperability, projecting public support for terrorism, improving biosurveillance systems, and building support within organizations for change. Methodologically, she has led work on computational social-behavioral modelling for complex environments, and uncertainty-sensitive approaches to understanding decisionmaking. Other projects included work on the national security implications of virtual currency and the integration of women into special operations forces. She was the inaugural winner of RAND's Innovation Award in 2015 for her work on incorporating social media in public policy analysis.
O'Mahony co-edited Social-Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems, a volume that grew out of DARPA-funded RAND research. She has published more than a dozen articles in top academic journals examining the implications of international political and economic scrutiny on governments' decisionmaking, the causes and consequences of transnational political behavior, and modeling complex social systems.
O'Mahony teaches courses on policymaking in complex environments and international security.
Prior to joining RAND, O'Mahony was an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, where she taught courses on international political economy and economic statecraft. A native Angelena, she received her B.A. in economics and political science from UCLA and her Ph.D. in political science from UC San Diego.
Ph.D. in political science, University of California, San Diego; B.A. in economics, University of California, Los Angeles
