MIT Security Studies Program

MIT Security Studies Program
292 Main Street, 6th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-1825

Cindy Williams, Principal Research Scientist

Areas of expertise: military personnel policy/benefits reform; defense/security budget; global terrorism

Cindy Williams' work at MIT includes analysis of military pay, personnel and benefits policies, efficiency and waste in Pentagon spending, as well comparative analyses of military vs. non-military options for addressing global mass casualty terrorism. Formerly she served as an Assistant Director of the Congressional Budget Office, where she led the National Security Division in studies of budgetary and policy choices related to defense and international security. Dr. Williams has served as a director and in other capacities at the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts; as a member of the Senior Executive Service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon; and as a mathematician at RAND in Santa Monica, California. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Williams holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Irvine. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the Information and Command and Control Systems Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.