Academics

Director of Penn State's ICST appointed member of FBI board

University Park, Pa. -- John Horgan, director of The International Center for the Study of Terrorism (ICST) at Penn State, has been appointed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to serve on the Research Advisory Board of its National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). He is associate professor of psychology and science, technology and society in the College of the Liberal Arts.

The NCAVC is part of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and provides investigative support to law enforcement agencies around the world for crimes such as serial or single homicides, child abductions or exploitation, terrorism, bombings, arson, threats, serial rapes or extortion. Services include profiles of unknown offenders, threat assessments, interview or interrogation strategies and expert testimony.

Beginning in 2009, Horgan partnered with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit 1 (BAU-1) on its efforts to understand the factors and methods by which people become involved in terrorism and to identify the behavioral indicators involved in planning and preparing for engagement in terrorist activity. The appointment to the NCAVC’s Research Advisory Board represents an extraordinary and unprecedented honor for Horgan and ICST and underscores the value of collaboration between academic research and operational counterterrorism efforts.

Dedicated to the scientific study of terrorism and political violence, the International Center for the Study of Terrorism, based in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State, engages in research, teaching and training activities that are international in scope and multidisciplinary in nature. The Center is committed to promoting and engaging in data-driven empirical research performed to the highest academic standards.

For more information about ICST, visit http://www.icst.psu.edu/ online.

John Horgan Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated January 9, 2015

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