Senior Policy Researcher; Professor of Policy Analysis, RAND School of Public Policy
Shelly Culbertson is a senior researcher at RAND and professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on disaster and post-conflict recovery, immigration and mass migration policy, refugees, the Middle East, global education, and international development. She has led multiple studies about mass migration, with particular focus on education, jobs, security, refugee return conditions, and technology. She conducted work to develop a spatial and infrastructure vision for the West Bank and Gaza, a housing plan for Gaza, and recovery in Gaza. She led a disaster recovery plan for the U.S. Virgin Islands, sponsored by FEMA and a study on post-conflict stabilization of Mosul, Iraq, after the operations against ISIS. She coled a multi-year effort to advise the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq on improving education and coordinated RAND's project to design programs for the Qatar National Research Fund.
Culbertson previously served as associate director of the Disaster Management and Resilience Program and director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, & Security Operations Program. Prior to RAND, she worked at the U.S. State Department on Turkey and at LMI Government Consulting. Her commentaries have appeared in Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The Hill, Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, and elsewhere, and she has conducted media interviews on MSNBC, NPR, BBC World, and elsewhere. Culbertson is the author of The Fires of Spring: A Post Arab Spring Journey Through the Turbulent New Middle East (St. Martin's Press). She earned her M.P.A. from the School for Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
M.P.A. in public policy and international development, Princeton University School for Public and International Affairs; B.Phil. in political science and philosophy, University of Pittsburgh; B.S. in mathematics, University of Pittsburgh
