Robert D. Lamb

Robert D. Lamb (Bob) is the director of ICONS, the simulations, wargaming and social complexity practice at the University of Maryland's counter-extremism research center, START, where he is an associate research scientist. He is also a senior research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM).

Lamb's policy and research interests focus on helping decision makers navigate complexity and overcome barriers to effective policy and strategy implementation. His current portfolio spans the integration of participatory, qualitative and quantitative methods in complexity research; their application to the development of tools and simulations involving human-computer interaction; and their use on complex global challenges in national security and democratic recovery. In his past work, he has led dozens of policy-research studies on conflict, fragility, development, governance, democracy, methodology and impact, leading to more than 60 publication credits and more than a hundred speaking engagements in about 20 countries. He has developed new approaches to assessing the dynamics of legitimacy in highly contested situations, stakeholder relations in global banking, the quality of governance in non-governmental institutions, and the dynamics of organizational change in institutions and coalitions.

Through a career spanning three decades, Lamb has worded as an advisor, consultant, entrepreneur, policy research director, business and finance journalist, defense strategist and field researcher. He is formerly co-founder and CEO of the systems-transformation nonprofit Foundation for Inclusion, a strategist at the office of the Secretary of Defense, the conflict director at the center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a visiting research professor at the Army War College.

An award-winning journalist covering technology, business and finance, Lamb changed careers after 9/11 and earned a Ph.D. in policy studies from the University of Maryland in an interdisciplinary program combining international security, international development, economics and ethics, with a thesis focused on strategies to reduce complex violence. Lamb lives just outside of Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.