Cynthia Cook

Dr. Cynthia Cook is director of the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center, part of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Since joining RAND in 1997, she has led and worked on a wide range of studies for the U.S. Air Force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, the Australian Department of Defence, and the UK Ministry of Defence on subjects including defense acquisition, cost analysis, the defense industrial base, weapons production weapon systems sustainment, and contracting practices. She was formerly the associate director of Project AIR FORCE. Prior to joining RAND, Cook was a research specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on the Lean Aerospace Initiative. Before her graduate studies, she worked in New York as an investment banker, specializing in high-yield finance. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University and a B.S. in management from the Wharton School of the Universit