Emma Westerman

Emma Westerman directs the Management, Technology, and Capabilities (MTC) Program within the Homeland Security Research Division (HSRD). She is a mathematician who specializes in requirements, acquisition, logistics, technology, sustainment, cybersecurity, and lifecycle risk management.

Prior to joining RAND, Westerman worked as a lifecycle logistics manager for the Department of Defense. She was responsible for the development, acquisition, testing, operations and sustainment logistics for multiple Phased Array Radar programs. Westerman helped to develop the cross-platform implementation plans, contracts and other high level documentation for ACAT I and II programs. She has experience in Lean Six Sigma, Total Ownership Cost, risk reduction, and the federal budgeting cycle. Prior to managing logistics, Westerman held several rotational positions within the DoD. These positions included performing reliability analysis for the Zumwalt Class Destroyer program, requirements refinement at OPNAV, assisting the executive director of the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, and developing overarching metrics for the Navy’s Submarine Safety Program.

Westerman is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a joint B.S. in mathematics and statistics and a B.A. in philosophy. She also received a dual M.S. in mathematics and statistics from Georgetown University. At Carnegie Mellon she studied graph theory, logic and optimization. At Georgetown she studied signal processing and data mining. She received a National Science Foundation grant to study the minimum crossing numbers of complete graphs, has taught in Ecuador, and enjoys speaking about the importance of data-driven capability analysis.