Alexandra Evans

Alexandra T. Evans is a Policy Researcher at RAND and a Professor of Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She was a 2018–2019 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin.

Her research explores U.S. perceptions of threat and change in the international system, with a focus on the late Cold War, the Middle East, and the use of force. Her current project uses recently declassified records to evaluate the Reagan administration’s failed diplomatic and military interventions in Lebanon, demonstrating how the intensity and complexity of the country’s violence forced policymakers to confront the limits of U.S. power and the flaws of their own strategic thinking.

Before her postdoctoral fellowship at Clements Center, Alexandra was an Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy with the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In addition to her academic research, her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post and War on the Rocks, and other outlets. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia in 2018, and holds a B.A. from Vassar College.