About The Deployment Life Study

This project is a collaboration of a dynamic interdisciplinary team of RAND researchers, each of whom brings a rich basis of topical expertise and scholarly credentials. The team is led by three senior investigators. Their backgrounds and unique contributions to the Deployment Life Study are summarized below.

Terri Tanielian is a senior social research analyst. Ms. Tanielian co-led RAND's Invisible Wounds of War study, the first to assess the psychological and cognitive needs of returned service members from all branches of the military. Findings from the study have triggered initiatives to expand and improve effective mental health care for service members and veterans.

Benjamin Karney is a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an adjunct behavioral scientist at RAND. For the last 20 years, Dr. Karney has been studying how marriages develop and change over time, especially in difficult or challenging environments. His recent work focuses in particular on how deployments affect relationships between service members and their spouses.

Sarah Meadows is social scientist whose expertise includes family well-being, mental health and stress and coping, and manpower and personnel issues in the United States Military. Her prior research focused on family structure change and health and well-being among parents. Dr. Meadows' current work examines psychosocial factors that promote resilience and well-being among servicemembers and their families.