Belinda Bragg

Principal Research Scientist

Dr. Belinda Bragg is a Principal Research Scientist for NSI, Inc. She has provided core support for US Joint Staff Strategic Multilayer Analysis (SMA) projects assisting USSTRATCOM, USEUCOM, USINDOPACOM, USCENTCOM, USAFRICOM, and USAF for more than a decade. Belinda has extensive experience building social science models and frameworks to address complex strategic challenges. Her research has focused on decision making, causes of conflict and state instability, interest analysis, gray zone and great power competition, and influence and the information environment. She specializes in designing visual representations of complex concepts, leveraging data, qualitative research, and theory concurrently.

Belinda is one of the two designers of a stability model (the StaM) that has been used by ISAF to determine the success of stability efforts in Afghanistan and by the Joint Staff to evaluate state stability in Pakistan. She also developed NSI’s Pathways model, which examines future trajectories of fragile states and has been applied to Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has designed metrics for measuring dyadic importance and leverage of states; overseen a global data collection effort for US, Russian, and Chinese relations with all states; and developed measures of effectiveness for US influence and information activities. Most recently, she has been responsible for development of NSI’s Global Exploitable Conditions Model (GECM) and its tailoring to USAFRICOM’s AOR. Belinda has authored integration reports and briefings for multiple SMA projects and presented research findings to senior decision makers and communities of interest both virtually and in-person at conferences and meetings. Prior to joining NSI, Belinda was a Lecturer in International Relations at Texas A&M University in College Station. She earned her PhD in Political Science from Texas A&M University and her BA from the University of Melbourne, Australia.