Cheryl Benard

Cheryl Benard is the president of Metis Analytics, a Washington, DC-based research company. From 2003 to 2012, she was a senior analyst with the RAND Corporation, where she worked primarily on methods for understanding and countering radical extremism. This included projects with Iraqi youth in Baghdad, education programs in Afghanistan, outreach to media activists, and workshops with female peace activists. Prior to that, she was research director with a European foundation that focused on...See more

Cheryl Benard is the president of Metis Analytics, a Washington, DC-based research company. From 2003 to 2012, she was a senior analyst with the RAND Corporation, where she worked primarily on methods for understanding and countering radical extremism. This included projects with Iraqi youth in Baghdad, education programs in Afghanistan, outreach to media activists, and workshops with female peace activists. Prior to that, she was research director with a European foundation that focused on domestic social problems in Germany and Austria, especially those related to immigration, migrant workers, and refugees. Benard's career has spanned two continents. Her focus has been on published results with a high degree of accessibility for policy makers, media and the interested public. She has been the recipient of several awards in recognition of her work, including the Theodor Kery Prize for Socially Relevant Research and the Donauland Prize for Nonfiction Writing. Her books, including Civil Democratic Islam, have been translated into several languages. See less