IDA Research Staff participate actively in various professional activities – both within their disciplines and ancillary to them – including publishing in the open literature. Below are some recent citations of IDA Researchers and their work.
SFRD’s Peter Levine’s latest article Ten Rules for Successful Defense Management Reform was published in Tuesday’s issue of War on the Rocks. In his commentary, Mr. Levine notes that, although DoD has seen an endless stream of legislation and initiatives to improve defense management, too many have failed because they overlooked simple and obvious rules about why and how management reform works (or doesn't work) in Washington. This article provides ten simple rules that, if followed, will enable future reform leaders to make measurable progress in attacking bureaucracy and inefficiency in the Pentagon.
IAD’s Sydney Deatherage, member of IDA’s Africa Team, recently briefed general officers and other Ministry of Defense officials in Cameroon and Chad as part of SFRD’s institutional capacity building projects in the Lake Chad Region.
Director of IDA’s CCR-La Jolla Skip Garibaldi has been invited to give one of the plenary addresses at the Joint Mathematics Meetings(Open external link) in January 2020 in Denver. This joint invitation from two of the societies that sponsor the conference (AMS & MAA) is a rare honor that provides a platform to show IDA as part of the mathematics community.
SFRD Researcher Peter Levine’s latest article “GAO Needs to Step Up Its Game On Annual Weapons Study” appeared in the June 6 Breaking Defense. The article was prepared as IDA publication P-10692(Open external link). This year’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment of major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs) suffers from serious analytic problems – in particular, the report asserts that the DOD acquisition portfolio suffered from “cost growth” and “deteriorating performance,” when in fact unit costs went down and overall costs increased only because the Department bought more.
SFRD’s Wade Hinkle and Aaron Taliaferro, and CARD’s Paul Thompson, spoke at the panel discussion, “La Alta Gestión y la Gobernanza de Defensa” (“High Level Management and Governance of Defense”) at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, National Defense University, on June 5.
ITSD Researcher Nateé Johnson started her Flatiron School DC Data Science Fellowship(Open external link) on June 3. During her 15-week, full-time fellowship, she will receive intensive training in exploratory data analysis and descriptive statistics, Python coding, advanced data retrieval and analysis, machine learning, deep learning, and other related modules with a master project at the end.
ITSD’s Karen Gordon and Jonathan Agre, STD’s Marius Vassiliou, and STPI’s Georgia Butcher (pictured left to right) researched 5G and related technologies at the request of OSTP. Their results were delivered to President Trump and released to the public(Open external link) on May 30, as an OSTP report, Emerging Technologies and Their Expected Impact on Non-Federal Spectrum Demand(Open external link). The report is intended to inform the development of the National Spectrum Strategy called for in an October 25, 2018, Presidential Memorandum(Open external link).
SFRD’s Peter Levine appeared on Government Matters on May 28. He spoke on building new skills and competencies in the Department of Defense acquisition workforce and why a new model of civil service career planning will be required to implement recommended improvements.
STPI Researcher Alexis McKittrick has been elected for another term on the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Board of Directors. She starts her two-year term as SWE’s Speaker of the Senate in July.
On May 23, STPI policy fellows and RSMs working on STPI’s space-related projects met with Vice President Pence; Director of OSTP, Kelvin Droegemeier; Executive Director of the National Space Council, Scott Pace; and other members of the Executive Office of the President. At the meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the STPI group had an opportunity to converse with the Vice President and visit his ceremonial office.
Dr. Chu participated in a public hearing, Fostering Critical Skills and Creating New Pipelines(Open external link), before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service on May 16. The hearing, which was lived streamed, is available on the Commission’s Facebook site.
STPI’s Bhavya Lal spoke at the Humans to Mars Summit 2019(Open external link) at the National Academy of Sciences Building.
SFRD’s Peter Levine’s article “Building a 21st Century Defense Acquisition Workforce(Open external link)” was published in the May 6 edition of War on the Rocks. This article is based on IDA publication NS P-10620(Open external link). Mr. Levine suggests that the DoD must stop making hiring decisions position by position and establish a system that enables it to rotate future civilian leaders through a series of time-limited, career-building assignments if it wants to develop employees rather than just managing them for immediate performance.
STPI’s Asha Balakrishnan spoke at the Annual AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] Science and Technology Policy Forum(Open external link) on May 2. As a member of the panel on China S&T and Effects on U.S. Research, she focused on China immigration trends in U.S. and their effects on US university research.
The spring 2019 issue of Bucknell Magazine featured CARD’s Madeline Minneci, highlighting her work at IDA. In the article(Open external link), she also reflects on her undergraduate experience at Bucknell University and how these experiences influenced her career path and led her to IDA.
General John Abizaid resigned from the IDA Board of Trustees to assume the position of U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to confirm him to this position on April 10.
SFRD’s Peter Levine and coauthor Bill Greenwalt’s article and “What the 809 Panel Didn’t Quite Get Right(Open external link)” appeared in the April 4 online edition of Breaking Defense. The article, based on IDA publication P-10759, recommends changes to the acquisition laws to make it easier for the Department of Defense to access innovative commercial technology. The authors served together on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where they formed a bipartisan team addressing acquisition policy issues.
The Federal News Network print edition, April 5, in an article “DoD Plans to Cut 18,000 Uniformed Health Positions, but no Clear Plan to Replace Them(Open external link)” cites IDA publication Medical Total Force Management: Assessing Readiness and Cost(Open external link). The article noted that IDA’s report estimates that DoD could save more than $1 billion over five years by converting military positions that provide care in just eight specific specialties to civilian health jobs.
