Latin America Leadership Program

Robin L. Dillon-Merrill is a Professor and the Operations and Analytics Area Chair in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. In her research, Professor Dillon-Merrill seeks to understand and explain how and why people make the decisions that they make under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This research specifically examines critical decisions that people have made following near-miss events in situations with severe outcomes including hurricane evacuation, maritime safety, terrorism, cybersecurity, and NASA mission management. She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security through USC’s National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis for Terrorism Events and through ASU's Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency. She has served as a risk analysis and project management expert on several National Academies Committees including the review of the New Orleans regional hurricane protection projects and the application of risk analysis techniques to securing the Department of Energy’s special nuclear materials. From 2015-2017, she served as the co-chair of the Georgetown Environment Initiative, and from 2017-2019, she served as the National Science Foundation Program Director for the Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment program in the Engineering Directorate. She has a B.S./M.S. from the University of Virginia in Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. From 1993-1995 she worked as a systems engineer for the Fluor Daniel Corporation.