Cortney Weinbaum

Cortney Weinbaum specializes in intelligence and cyber topics at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank. She has worked with the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to improve policies, practices, and technologies. She has improved analytic and collection tradecraft; identified emerging technologies and their impact on special operations, countering weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence; and facilitated strategic planning with senior executive leadership teams. She has facilitated cross-discipline teams to apply structured analytic techniques to intractable intelligence topics, and she has applied wargaming and scenario-based planning against both operational and enterprise topics.

Weinbaum led two teams to receive the Director of National Intelligence’s Meritorious Unit Citation for advancing the IC’s knowledge of two intractable intelligence topics. Since joining RAND, she has studied emerging technologies and their implications for intelligence; the availability of unclassified intelligence collection technologies in the public domain; the future of secrecy; and the role of millennials in intelligence. She began her career as an intelligence officer developing radio frequency and electromagnetic MASINT collection systems. Weinbaum earned her B.S. in physics from the University of Michigan. She serves on the Board of Directors of Carrie Simon House, a charity that provides housing, financial literacy, and life skills to homeless mothers with young children in Washington, DC.

SPS Alumni Information

SPS Chapter: University of Michigan

Cortney Weinbaum is available for student engagement in the following categories: mentoring, in-person speaker, virtual speaker. Send a request using this form .

Alum Location: Washington DC
Education Level: Bachelors
Disciplines: other

Job Sector: government
Recent position: National Security Researcher, RAND Corporation
Job Description: I conduct research and analysis on intelligence and cyber programs in the U.S. government to advise agencies how to improve their strategies, policies, and operations. Many of my publications are available online on the RAND website, where you can see examples of my work.

Alumni Website: https://www.rand.org/about/people/w/weinbaum_cortney.html