During her senior year at Southwestern, Sara Alvis was recruited by the CIA.  She graduated in 1995 with degrees in Political Science and French, as well as mention in the Academic Distinction List and the Gertrude Solomon Award for Excellence in French. She started working with the CIA while attending graduate school at the George Washington University in Washington D.C.  During her first year there, Alvis took part in a State Department internship which took her to work at the U.S. embassy in Paris, France.

After earning her Masters degree in International Affairs in 1997, Alvis began working full-time as an analyst with the CIA. She followed leadership issues in India by developing leadership profiles of major political figures in India and assessments of trends in the Indian political landscape for senior U.S. officials. The majority of Alvis’s time with the CIA was spent analyzing Middle East terrorism for senior policymakers, including the President, Cabinet Members, Congress, and other senior U.S. Government officials.  In 2001, Alvis worked as the CIA’s counter-terrorism representative to the State Department, where she advised the counter-terrorism head on key intelligence issues, authored policy memos for Secretary Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage and other senior officials, and served as a subject matter expert on Middle East and South Asian terrorism issues. By the time she left the CIA in 2001, Alvis was recognized as an expert in her area of responsibility.

Soon after, Alvis began working as an international policy analyst for the non-profit think tank the RAND corporation. During her time at RAND, Alvis has had the opportunity to write extensively on the issue of terrorism, and her list of publications include the latest, entitled The Dynamic Terrorist Threat: An Assessment of Group Motivations and Capabilities in a Changing World. Alvis has also had the opportunity to make television appearances on Fox News Sunday as well as Q&A on CNN International. She has spoken to various regional and international radio programs, made conference presentations, served on academic panels, and written pieces about the global impact of terrorism for Chicago Sun Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

In 2001 Alvis married Matthew Daly, and they are now the proud parents of a young son.