A political scientist by training, Kavanagh has spent her career studying U.S. national security and defense policy. Kavanagh’s research focuses on U.S. military strategy, force structure and defense budgeting, the defense industrial base, and U.S. military deployments and interventions.

Previously, Kavanagh was a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She also worked as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where she led projects for defense and national security clients. She served for three years as director of RAND’s Army Strategy program. Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Washington Quarterly, Lawfare, Los Angeles Times, and War on the Rocks, among other outlets.

Kavanagh received an AB in Government from Harvard University and a PhD in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of Michigan. She is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.