Vanessa Parks is a sociologist at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. She has extensive experience designing and analyzing multimode surveys on a variety of topics. She also has experience with workshops, program evaluation, and qualitative methods. Her recent projects have focused on the development of AI research hubs, housing costs, alcohol use after the COVID-19 pandemic, caregiving, building codes, evacuation and migration after hurricanes, health care in Puerto Rico, fire safety, and terrorism prevention. She works with partners at all levels of government and with both nationally and regionally focused foundations. She has expertise in issues facing Southern states, particularly the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi Delta. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Louisiana State University and was a postdoc at the University of Mississippi's Center for Population Studies.
Ph.D. in sociology, Louisiana State University; M.A. in sociology, University of Mississippi Main Campus; B.A. in English writing, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
