Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and associate director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program in the RAND Arroyo Center. Her research focuses on U.S. political institutions and public opinion and their implications for U.S. foreign and domestic policy. She also studies political uses of mis- and disinformation. In her work for the U.S. Army, Jennifer studies military interventions and U.S. force posture.

Her recent book, Truth Decay, co-authored with RAND’s CEO Michael Rich, defines “Truth Decay” as the diminishing reliance on facts and data in U.S. political and civil discourse and describes its causes and consequences. “Truth Decay” is comprised of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information.

Kavanagh is also a faculty member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and teaches research methods courses as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. While completing her Ph.D., she was a Department of Homeland Security fellow and completed a research internship at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Kavanagh graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in government and a minor in the Russian language. She completed her Ph.D. in political science and public policy at University of Michigan. Her dissertation, “The Dynamics of Protracted Terror Campaigns: Domestic Politics, Terrorist Violence, Counterterror Responses” was named the best dissertation in the public policy subfield in 2010 by the American Political Science Association. Her research focus areas are: counterterrorism, democracy, information operations, military doctrine, military personnel, military strategy, peacekeeping and stability operations, politics and government, and security cooperation.