Gary Ackerman

Gary Ackerman is Assistant Director for Research and Communication at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). Prior to taking up his current position, he was Director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Research Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.  His research encompasses various areas relating to terrorism and counterterrorism, including terrorist threat assessment, terrorist technologies and motivations for using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons, radicalization processes and the modeling and simulation of terrorist behavior. Mr. Ackerman possesses an eclectic academic background, including past studies in the fields of mathematics, history, law, and international relations.
Ackerman was a member of the Member of the WMD Expert Advisory Group of the Information Sharing Environment initiative, Office of the Director for National Intelligence (2007-2008) and has testified on terrorist motivations for using nuclear weapons before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security in April 2008. He is the co-editor of Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction (CRC Press, 2009) and has authored several papers relating to the motivational aspects of CBRN terrorism, including most recently “Profiling the WMD Terrorist Threat,” in Stephen M. Maurer and Christine Hartmann-Siantar, eds., WMD Terrorism: Science and Policy Choices (MIT Press, 2009) with Jeffrey Bale, “Defining Knowledge Gaps Within CBRN Terrorism Research” in Unconventional Weapons and International Terrorism: Threat Convergence in the Twenty-First Century, Magnus Ranstorp and Magnus Normark eds., (New York: Routledge, 2009), “A Historical Overview of Biological Weapons Identification, Characterization and Attribution” in Anne Clunan, Peter Lavoy and Susan Martin eds., Terrorism, War or Disease? Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons (Stanford University Press, 2008) with Victor Asal, “Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism: A Preventable Peril” in Global Catastrophic Risks, Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Circkovic eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) with William Potter, “Reinventing Castor and Pollux: The Application of Social Bookmarking Technology to the National Intelligence Domain” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Volume 20, Number 4 (2007) with Molly James and Casey Getz, “It is Hard to Predict the Future: Evolving Nature of Threats and Vulnerabilities” in Martin Hugh-Jones (ed), OIE Scientific and Technical Review, Volume 25, Number 1 (2006) and “Beyond Arson? A Threat Assessment of the Earth Liberation Front” Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 15, Number 4 (Winter 2004).
Mr. Ackerman received his M.A. in International Relations (Strategic Studies - Terrorism) from Yale University and his Bachelors (Law, Mathematics, International Relations) and Honors (International Relations) degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently completing his PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, dealing with the impact of emerging technologies on terrorist decisions relating to CBRN weapons.