Cindy Williams

Cindy Williams is a Principal Research Scientist in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work at MIT includes an examination of the processes by which the U.S. government plans for and allocates resources among the activities related to national security and international affairs, a study of options for reform of military personnel policies, and an examination of the transition to all-volunteer forces in the militaries of Europe and North America. Formerly she was 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 Program Analysis and Evaluation of the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon; and as a mathematician at RAND in Santa Monica, California. Her areas of specialization include the U.S. national security budget, military personnel policy, and command and control of military forces. Williams has published in the areas of command and control and the defense budget. She is the editor of Holding the Line: U.S. Defense Alternatives for the Early 21st Century (MIT Press, 2001) and Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System (MIT Press, 2004); and is co-editor, with Curtis L. Gilroy, of Service to Country: Personnel Policy and the Transformation of Western Militaries (MIT Press, 2006). She is co-author, with Gordon Adams, of Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home Routledge 2010). An elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, she is a former member of the Naval Studies Board and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the advisory board of Women in International Security and on the editorial board of International Security. Williams holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Irvine.