Shelly Culbertson

Shelly Culbertson is a Senior Policy Researcher and Associate Director of the Disaster Research and Analysis Program at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on forced displacement, disaster recovery, postconflict stabilization, international development, and education. She has led ten studies about refugees and internally displaced persons, with particular focus on education, jobs, humanitarian assistance models, return conditions, and technology. She has led studies on disaster recovery in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and on postconflict stabilization in Iraq. Her international development work has focused on the Middle East.

Culbertson is the author of The Fires of Spring: A Post Arab Spring Journey through the Turbulent New Middle East (St. Martin's Press, 2016). She earned her MPA in public policy and international development from the Princeton School for Public and International Affairs.