Allison Astorino-Courtois

Chief Analytics Officer & Executive Vice President

Dr. Allison Astorino-Courtois is Executive Vice President at NSI, Inc. She has also served as co-chair of a National Academy of Sciences study, entitled Strategic Deterrence Military Capabilities in the 21st Century, and as a primary author on a study, entitled The Defense and Protection of US Space Assets. For the past 15 years, Allison has served as the Technical Lead on US Joint Staff-directed Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) projects in support of US Combatant Commands and Services. She is an expert in decision analysis, project design, and building conceptual and methodological foundations for quantitative and computational analysis. Projects for Combatant Command leadership have included the development of methodologies and analysis identifying the dynamics driving complex (multi-actor, multi-dimension) regional conflict systems; projecting the expected durability and viability of violent extremist organizations; determining provincial stability on US troop withdrawal in Afghanistan; assessing and tracking future economic, political, and social stability and future trajectories of nation-states and non-state actors; systematic, cognitive decision theory-based methods for identifying what deters specific actors under different conditions; and a variety of deterrence strategy and assessment methods and analyses.

Previously, Allison was a Senior Analyst at SAIC (2004-2007), where she served as a US Strategic Command liaison to US and international academic and business communities. Prior to SAIC, Allison was a tenured Associate Professor of International Relations at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX (1994-2003), where her research focused on the cognitive aspects of foreign policy decision making. She has received a number of academic grants and awards and has published articles in multiple peer-reviewed journals. Allison also taught at Creighton University and as a Visiting Instructor at the US Military Academy at West Point. She earned her PhD in International Relations and MA in Research Methods from New York University. Her BA is in Political Science from Boston College. Finally, Allison has the distinction of having been awarded both a US Navy Meritorious Service Award and a US Army Commander’s Award.