Melissa Rowe

Photo of Melissa Rowe
Vice President, Global Research Talent; Affiliate Faculty, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in clinical psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

Overview

Melissa K. Rowe (she/her) is vice president, Global Research Talent at the RAND Corporation with over 18 years of senior executive experience. She has become an expert in matrix workforce management, and novel approaches to organizational, operational, and workspace design that cultivate a collaborative, diverse, and exceptionally capable scientific community and set the conditions for institutional impact, agility, and innovation.

Rowe is RAND’s principal strategic advisor on the development and sustainment of RAND's global research talent base. She oversees a multidisciplinary staff of approximately 1,600 scientists, analysts, and research support professionals, encompassing over 100 different disciplinary backgrounds.

In 2015 Rowe established RAND's Impact Lab, which provides an internal platform for experimentation, professional training, and dissemination of best practices in extending RAND's impact and influence in policymaking, policy implementation, and the promulgation of innovative analytic methods.

Rowe also established the Methods Centers at RAND, six interdisciplinary centers of analytic excellence including: Center for Applied Network Analysis and Systems Science, Center for Qualitative and Mixed Methods, Center for Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Center for Causal Inference, Center for Gaming, and Center for Scalable Computing and Analysis.

As a senior behavioral scientist, her research interests include behavioral health services, quality of care, arts education, K–12 education policy, STEM education, diversity and workforce management, democratization of technology, and innovation. She is also an affiliate faculty member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Rowe received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed her clinical internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh.

Research Focus

Publications