Barry Pavel is vice president and director of the National Security Research Division (NSRD) at RAND. He also directs the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI), a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) within NSRD. Before RAND, Pavel was founding director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Before that, he was also served on the National Security Council (NSC) for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Pavel's research interests include geopolitics, national security strategy, Indo-Pacific and trans-Atlantic security, economic security, and U.S. global defense posture. Pavel earned an MPA and M.A. from Princeton University and a B.S. in applied mathematics/economics from Brown University.