John Parachini is a senior international policy analyst and former director of the Intelligence Policy Center at the RAND Corporation. He has led RAND projects on the propensity of terrorists to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons; how the U.S. government can capture terrorists’ digital information; scenario development for counterterrorism planning; and the danger of terrorists and rogue states acquiring nuclear material expertise from the former Soviet Union.
Parachini has testified before both houses of Congress and published articles on terrorism and weapons proliferation in the Washington Quarterly, Arms Control Today, RAND Review, The Nonproliferation Review, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, and International Herald Tribune.
Previously, Parachini served as the executive director of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Prior to joining the Monterey Institute, he was a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center, where he focused on nonproliferation and arms control issues.
Parachini has taught at the University of Southern California Washington Policy Center and the City University of New York’s Baruch College in the School of Public Affairs. He served in short assignments at the U.S. State Department’s Operations Center, and the Bureaus of Political-Military Affairs, Intelligence and Research, and Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Parachini holds a B.A. in philosophy from Haverford College; an M.A. in international relations from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; and an M.B.A. from Georgetown University.