Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)

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Overview

The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an independent, non-profit, federally-funded research and development center that provides objective analyses to the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. Economists at IDA support senior defense leaders by applying economic theory and analytic methods to issues of National Security policy and resource management. As needed, we apply proven tools to new problems and data, develop new models, and generate new theory.

Recent examples of our work include:

- Constructing mechanisms for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to care for each other’s patients and to transfer funding across departments
- Exploring alternative organizational structures and delivery methods for educating and training military medical personnel in order to reduce costs and streamline management
- Identifying opportunities to transfer positions among active and reserve military personnel, federal civilians, and contractors in order to reduce costs and concentrate military personnel in more operational (vs. administrative) positions
- Making recommendations to improve the outreach, hiring, and training of civilian personnel in the - Department of Defense, particularly in key specialties such as cyber, intelligence, foreign language proficiency, and STEM
- Examining the dependence of the U.S. – and particularly the U.S. military – on overseas manufacturers of computer chips
- Designing a multi-year personnel retention experiment
- Estimating causal effects of staffing levels on mission effectiveness
- Predicting individuals’ career events with machine learning and a rich set of personnel records

We take pride in the high caliber and timeliness of our analyses, our independent thinking, and our objective results. Work at IDA is conducted in a team environment and often involves a multi-disciplinary approach with physicists, engineers, psychologists, and other social scientists. Researchers work closely with and are in frequent contact with government sponsors. Consequently, strong communication skills are greatly valued.

We will consider job market candidates preparing to graduate, recent graduates, and mid-career individuals.