Ph.D. in industrial and operations engineering, University of Michigan; M.S. in industrial and operations engineering, University of Michigan; B.S. in systems engineering, University of Virginia
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More ExpertsKatharina Best (she/her) is associate director of the Personnel, Training, and Health (PT&H) program within the RAND Arroyo Center, and a senior operations researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her research interests focus on applications of operations research and mathematical modeling, including work on risk management, military force management, manpower and workforce issues, acquisition, and financial modeling. Best's work at RAND covers acquisition decisionmaking, force planning, readiness, and personnel issues across the Army and Department of Defense, and focuses on development of decision support processes and tools. Prior to coming to RAND, she studied the dynamics of the college education market in the United States as well as the effect of loans and credit on decisions made by students, parents, lenders, and institutions of higher education. She also worked as a corporate risk consultant at Oliver Wyman Financial Services, where she sought to apply risk management practices from the finance industry in other types of corporate management environments. Best received her Ph.D. and M.S. in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan and her B.S. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.
