Maya Buenaventura is a policy researcher at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. She employs quantitative and qualitative methods on a variety of projects, including program evaluation and empirical legal studies. Her research encompasses public defender workloads and models, issues affecting the civil justice system, banking initiatives, and forced labor in global supply chains. Prior to RAND, she was a senior research manager at the California Policy Lab at UCLA, where she led a portfolio of homelessness prevention projects. Maya has served as a Los Angeles County Management Fellow for the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. Prior to her public policy career, she spent seven years as a litigator handling the defense of consumer finance and product liability matters. She represented asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, and victims of domestic abuse in immigration court on a pro bono basis. She has also served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate. She received her J.D. from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. in public policy from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
J.D. in law, Northwestern University; Ph.D. in public policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School; B.A. in economics, Oglethorpe University
Spanish; French
