Prior to joining the GMU faculty in 2008, Ben Ouagrham-Gormley spent ten years working as a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) where her research focused on studying proliferation from former Soviet weapons scientists. In 1999-2001, Ben Ouagrham-Gormley was based in the CNS Almaty office in Kazakhstan where she conducted studies on the restructuring of the nuclear sector in Russia and on the conversion of bioweapons facilities in the former Soviet Union. In 2002-2005, she conducted a study of the Anti-Plague System of Central Asia and the Caucasus and participated in the Biological Weapon Proliferation Prevention program, under Cooperative Threat Reduction Program funded by the Department of Defense, which aimed to curb the proliferation threat from former biological facilities and scientists in Russia.