Associate Director, Strategy and Doctrine Program, RAND Project AIR FORCE; Policy Researcher
Alexandra T. Evans is the associate director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program in RAND Project AIR FORCE and a policy researcher at RAND. A historian of the Cold War by training, her research spans strategy, policy, and operational topics, with a focus on escalation management, deterrence, and regional security issues in Europe and the Middle East. She has led projects and studies for U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and Department of Defense sponsors related to the conduct and consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war, advances in adversary conventional and nuclear capabilities, and planning for major contingency operations in multiple theaters, among other topics. Among other RAND publications, she recently co-authored The Drivers and Outlook for Russia-Iran Cooperation(September 2023), Managing Escalation: Lessons and Challenges from Three Historical Crises and Conflicts (February 2024), and A Vocabulary of Escalation: A Primer on the Escalation Literature for Military Planners (2024). Her research has been published in the Texas National Security Review and her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CSIS publications, and War on the Rocks, among other outlets. Prior to joining RAND, she was an Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy with the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a postdoctoral fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin.
Evans received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in history from Vassar College.
Ph.D. in history, University of Virginia; M.A. in history, University of Virginia; B.A. in history, Vassar College
