Barry Pavel

Barry Pavel is vice president of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD). He directs the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI), a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) whose sponsors include the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense intelligence enterprise. Before joining RAND, Barry was the founding director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He has worked in the field of defense policy for more than three decades. He held senior positions at the Department of Defense and National Security Council before taking on his role at the Atlantic Council. Barry has been widely recognized as a leader and important voice on US national security policy and is also known as a generous mentor and effective collaborator. His own research interests span a wide range of areas, including geopolitics, national security strategy, Indo-Pacific and trans-Atlantic security, and US global defense posture. Barry earned MPA and MA degrees from Princeton University and an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics/economics from Brown University.