Policy Researcher & Developer
Alyssa I. Agard
I am Master of Public Policy candidate at Rutgers University and founder of Agard Research Associates, a nonprofit research institute. My work spans defense policy analysis, quantitative research, and institutional design.
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Featured Research
The Intellegentized Security Dilemma:
Systems Destruction Warfare, Technological Entanglement, and the Erosion of Strategic Stability
I am a historian at heart, drawn to the raw human experience of conflict: the motivations that compelled warriors to fight, to endure, and to die for causes larger than themselves. My historical interests span the Mongol Empire and the statecraft of Inner Asia, Norse and Viking martial traditions, and American military history from the Revolution through the Cold War. What captivates me is the question that connects all of these eras: what drives individuals to sacrifice everything, whether for glory, honor, duty, or the conviction that death in pursuit of something meaningful is preferable to a life without it. That question led me naturally to contemporary defense policy and the study of how human cognition shapes strategic decisions under extreme conditions. My research now examines institutional design and decision-making in defense organizations, investigating how cognitive bias, organizational structures, and the psychology of leadership influence policy outcomes across centuries of conflict. I work across disciplinary boundaries, integrating history, political science, and behavioral science to explore whether the motivations that shaped battlefields in 197 AD still operate in the command centers of the present. My methods combine archival research and primary source analysis with quantitative tools (R, Python, SPSS, SQL, ArcGIS), grounding contemporary findings in the documentary and material record. I believe the best policy research is built on a deep understanding of the past, and that the historian's instinct to ask "why" is the most important analytical skill a researcher can carry into any field.
Featured Project
Coming Soon!
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My projects apply quantitative methods and spatial analysis to questions rooted in defense policy, political economy, and historical research. I work primarily in Python, R, and SQL for data collection, cleaning, and statistical analysis, and in ArcGIS for geospatial visualization and spatial modeling. The projects housed here range from conflict event analysis and arms transfer data pipelines to geographic mapping of defense infrastructure and federal procurement patterns. Each project is built to be reproducible, with full code, documentation, and methodology available on GitHub. I approach technical work the same way I approach historical research: every dataset tells a story, and the analyst's job is to find the question worth asking before reaching for an answer. This portfolio will grow as new projects are completed, so check back or follow me on GitHub to stay current.
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