CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C205-2
Stanford CA 94305-6165

dmblum@stanford.edu

Research Interests
Probabilistic modeling; risk analysis; early warning systems

David Blum is a returning CISAC predoctoral fellow. He attends Stanford University, where he is a 5th year Ph.D. student in the department of Management Science & Engineering affiliated with the Decision Analysis & Risk Analysis group, as well as a U.S. Department of Defense SMART Scholar. His research involves the development of a probabilistic model for warning of crises. He is applying that model to warn of imminent violence against communities in Guatemala perpetrated by a drug trafficking organization.

Last year David served as teaching assistant for the 2011-2012 CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program. As a Stanford graduate student he has also worked with the Counter-Proliferation Operations-Intelligence Support program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where has analyzed the risk posed by misuse or diversion of foreign chemical and biological infrastructure to develop weapons of mass destruction. Between 2004 and 2008, David worked at the U.S. Department of Defense as an operations research analyst. He deployed twice to Iraq, in 2007 and 2008, where, as a civilian member of Multi-National Corps Iraq, he provided direct analytic support to conventional and special operations units.

He received his Master's degree from MIT in political science, concentrating in security studies, and his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in history and physics.