Dr. Lisa Saum-Manning is the Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Program and a senior Political Scientist whose research interests focus on aspects of strategic planning for the U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. Department of State to include Security Cooperation, Conflict Prevention in Fragile Countries, Capacity Building in Developing Countries, Counterinsurgency, Unconventional Warfare, and WMD Nonproliferation. Dr. Saum-Manning recently served and appointment as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations as the office implements the congressionally mandated Global Fragility Act. Additional recent research focuses on building sustainable security capacity in Africa, the Info Pacific, Central and South America. She has extensive experience engaging with U.S. and partner nation officials at the institutional, operational and tactical level. For example, she recently returned from East Africa evaluating U.S. military efforts to build partner logistics capacity for UN peacekeepers deploying to Somalia. She also taught CIV-MIL engagement courses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of upcoming national elections. In 2018, she spent 6 months deployed to Puerto Rico to support FEMA's hurricane Maria recovery efforts. In November 2014 she co-presented a course on Strategic Intelligence in Colombia for Colombian intelligence officials. In April 2014 Lisa traveled to Guatemala to conduct research on U.S. military efforts to build partner capacity. Dr. Saum-Manning also deployed to Afghanistan to provide analytic support to U.S. Special Forces. Prior to RAND, Lisa worked in the Nonproliferation and National Security Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory where her research assessed nuclear infrastructure capacity-building in developing countries. She received her Ph.D.in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.