Michael D. Rich is president emeritus at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis, having served as president, CEO, and trustee from 2011 to 2022.
During his tenure as president and CEO, Rich focused on extending the impact of RAND's work, strengthening the environment for innovation, improving the institution's agility, and raising its profile. In 2020, Rich launched the ongoing fundraising campaign Tomorrow Demands Today, the most ambitious such effort in RAND's history. Rich is the coauthor (with Jennifer Kavanagh) of Truth Decay, the first study in a body of research that examines how the diminishing role of facts and analysis in public life has caused an erosion of civil discourse, which in turn has degraded society's ability to address and solve complex policy problems.
Rich began his RAND career as a summer intern in 1975, joining the institution full-time the following year as a researcher focused on U.S. national security issues. He served in a variety of senior leadership positions at RAND, including executive vice president from 1993 to 2011 and vice president, National Security Research Division from 1986 to 1993. He was instrumental in the creation of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center that provides research and analysis to the Office of the Secretary of War, the Joint Staff, the Unified Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the Intelligence Community. He also helped lead RAND's diversification and expansion into international markets—including the Middle East, Europe, and Australia. Throughout his career, Rich has been an active supporter of the RAND School of Public Policy, the world's largest public policy Ph.D. program, where he has taught, advised graduate students, and chaired numerous committees.
Rich has served on the governing boards and advisory committees of many policy and service organizations, including the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, WISE & Healthy Aging, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Council for Aid to Education. He was a member of the U.S. Defense Science Board from 2012 to 2021 and currently serves on the advisory boards of the Everychild Foundation and the UCLA Health System. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the California Bar.
Rich received his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. In June 2022, the RAND School of Public Policy conferred upon Rich the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Policy.
J.D., University of California, Los Angeles
