Henry H. Willis is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He previously served as deputy director of the RAND Homeland Security Division and director of the division's Strategy, Policy, and Operations Program and Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program.
Willis is a recognized expert in risk analysis and management. Recent work analyzes biosecurity risks and biodefense capabilities; border and terrorism security; climate and natural disaster risks; critical infrastructure resilience; and national preparedness to chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological attacks. Through his work he testified before Congress; served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences; advised government agencies across the United States, Europe, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates; and published dozens of journal articles, reports, and op-eds on applying risk analysis to homeland security policy.
Willis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Science and Governance Committees of the Society for Risk Analysis. His work in homeland security policy evolved from his work on program evaluation at the White House Office of Management and Budget and infrastructure design as a water and wastewater engineer. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, M.S. in environmental engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and B.A. in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
Selected Publications
Willis, Henry H., Mary Tighe, Andrew Lauland, Liisa Ecola, Shoshana R. Shelton, Meagan L. Smith, John G. Rivers, Kristin J. Leuschner, Terry Marsh, and Daniel M. Gerstein, Homeland Security National Risk Characterization: Risk Assessment Methodology, RAND Corporation (RR-2140-DHS), 2018
Michelle Abbott, Morgan Bazilian, Daniel Egel, a nd Henry H. Willis, "Examining the Food-Energy-Water and Conflict Nexus," Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 18(November), 2017
Russell Lundberg and Henry H. Willis, "Examining the effectiveness of risk elicitations: comparing a deliberative risk ranking to a nationally representative survey on homeland security risk," Journal of Risk Research, (January), 2019
Willis, Henry H., Anu Narayanan, Jordan R. Fischbach, Edmundo Molina-Perez, Chuck Story, Kathleen Loa, and Lauren Kendrick, Current and Future Exposure of Infrastructure in the United States to Natural Hazards, RAND Corporation (RR-1453-DHS), 2016
Scott Savitz, Henry Willis, Aaron Davenport, Martina Melliand, William Sasser, Elizabeth Tencza, adn Dulani Woods, Enhancing U.S. Coast Guard Metrics, RAND Corporation (RR-1173), 2015
Henry Willis and Katie Loa, Measuring the Resilience of Energy Distribution Systems, RAND Corporation (RR-883), 2015
Jenkins, Brian Michael, Andrew Liepman, and Henry H. Willis, Identifying Enemies Among Us: Evolving Terrorist Threats and the Continuing Challenges of Domestic Intelligence Collection and Information Sharing, RAND Corporation (CF-317), 2014
Melissa Finucane, Noreen Clancy, Henry Willis, and Debra Knopman, The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force's Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines: An Initial Assessment of Implementation by Federal Agencies, RAND Corporation (RR-841), 2014