Terrorism expert to head Intl. Center for the Study of Terrorism

University Park, Pa. -- John Horgan, formerly on the faculty of University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of terrorism, is the director of Penn State's International Center for the Study of Terrorism. Horgan is helping the center build on an already strong record of international collaboration and to extend its mission of bringing top researchers into the field of terrorism research.

Horgan is the author or editor of several of the leading books in this field, most recently "Walking Away from Terrorism: Accounts of Disengagement from Radical and Extremist Movements" (Routledge), and is a consultant to numerous private and public-sector organizations involved in the worldwide effort to reduce the threat of terrorism.

His primary area of research relates to socio-political and psychological aspects of political violence, with a particular focus on understanding radicalization into, and out of, terrorism. Some of his previous research has examined political violence in Ireland, and the relationship between Irish Republican terrorism and organized crime, especially in the context of the group and organizational dynamics of terrorist movements.

He earned bachelor of arts and doctoral degrees in applied psychology from University College, Cork, Ireland.

The International Center for the Study of Terrorism is a consortium of research groups from more than 20 universities and research institutes worldwide that conduct and apply research on terrorism and counterterrorism. They include The Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford University, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, St. Louis University, Drexel University, University of Kansas, Binghamton University, University of New Mexico, International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, University of Leeds, University of Southampton, University of Sheffield, The University of Manchester, University of Utrecht and the University of Pennsylvania.

The core universities are members of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), a global alliance of leading universities committed to solving world problems through collaborative research, education, funding and exchange.

The Center conducts and disseminates research, sponsors seminars and workshops, and works with a number of agencies in the U.S. and abroad to apply knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences to help study and reduce the threat of terrorism.

Further details about the International Center for the Study of Terrorism is available at http://www.icst.psu.edu/ online. For more information on the WUN, go to http://www.wun.ac.uk online.