Caroline Tirk Receives David S. C. Chu Award for Excellence in
Research
ALEXANDRIA, VA (December 2024) — Caroline Tirk received the 2024 David S. C. Chu
Award for Excellence in Research. She is a Research Associate in the Global Dynamics and
Intelligence Division at one of the three federally funded research and development centers
operated by IDA.
The award, named in honor of the former IDA President, is presented annually to a Research
Associate who has made one or more outstanding analytic contributions in support of IDA’s
mission.
“Caroline is an accomplished technical contributor and leader, and she quickly earns the
confidence of everyone with whom she works,” said IDA President Norty Schwartz. “Her
professionalism and ability to engender trust has been crucial to the overall success of
significant IDA work.”
Since joining IDA, Caroline has shown drive and analytic acumen, evolving her academic
expertise in China to quickly become a respected analyst in ground military capabilities. She
displayed extraordinary range by supporting and leading projects on a variety of different topics.
Through her impressive research efforts, she has been able to leverage a complex and
otherwise indigestible foreign language data set. She took the initiative to teach herself the
geographic information system software ArcGIS and built a shared product that the sponsor and
others now rely on. Caroline also designed and populated a data annex to a study that is widely
recognized as a ground-breaking reference for U.S. government agencies.
Caroline earned a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and government from Georgetown University in
2016. She earned a master’s in international studies from the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in 2018.
IDA is a nonprofit corporation that operates three federally funded research and development
centers in the public interest. IDA answers the most challenging U.S. security and science policy
questions with objective analysis leveraging extraordinary scientific, technical and analytic
expertise.
