K. Jack Riley

Vice President and Director, Homeland SecurityOperational Analysis Center; Director, RAND HomelandSecurity Research Division

Jack Riley is vice president and director of the RAND Homeland Security Operational AnalysisCenter (HSOAC), which provides independent and objective analyses to the U.S. Departmentof Homeland Security. He directs RAND’s Homeland Security Research Division.

Until January 2022, Riley directed the National Security Research Division (NSRD), home toanother Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated at RANDunder a contract with the U.S. government. From 2008 to 2010, Riley was associate director ofNSRD. Before that, he served as associate director of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, andEnvironment (ISE). Prior to joining RAND, Riley worked as a senior civil servant at the U.S.Department of Justice where he focused on crime, immigration reform, drug epidemiology,and domestic terrorism.

Riley has testified before Congress on multiple occasions and has served as a trial observer inGuantanamo. He is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a boardmember at the National Defense University Foundation. A supporter of educating the nextgeneration of national security professionals, Riley has guest lectured at the University ofMichigan’s Ford School on the role of policy analysis in national security, and given acommencement address at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Criminology. He isalso on the board of the Fern Hollow Nature Center.

As a researcher, Riley has led and co-led numerous projects on national and homeland securitytopics, including an evaluation the DOD program providing excess equipment to lawenforcement agencies; assessments of passenger rail and airport security; police and securitysector reforms in Israel, Mexico, and Afghanistan; and gun violence reduction andpolice/community relations in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Dallas, and elsewhere. In addition toscholarly reports and journal articles, Riley has written commentaries that have beenpublished in such outlets as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and the New York Daily News. He’s also given interviews with NPR, CBS, theNew York Times, and Bloomberg Radio.

Riley holds a Ph.D. in public policy analysis from Pardee RAND Graduate School, an M.S. inforeign service from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in economics and Russian from theUniversity of Michigan.