“START Research: From Knowledge to Knowledge Tools”

Location: LTS Auditorium, 8080 Greenmead Drive

Speaker:
William Braniff
Executive Director, START
University of Maryland

Abstract:
As the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) Consortium nears its 10th anniversary, START data and analysis have matured to a high level. START now seeks to make its most impactful research as accessible as possible through online portals and knowledge tools. This introduction will provide an update on the open-source Global Terrorism Database (GTD), a group-level database called Big, Allied and Dangerous, and a Geo-spatial Information System (GIS)-based adversary model pertaining to transnational criminal organizations.

Currently the most comprehensive unclassified database on terrorist events around the world, the GTD includes information on more than 52,000 bombings, 14,400 assassinations and 5,600 kidnappings from 1970 through 2012. The GTD, unlike many other event databases, includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents and now includes more than 113,000 cases.

Bio:
William Braniff is the Executive Director at START. He previously served as the Director of Practitioner Education and an instructor at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). There, he led the practitioner education program, the nation’s largest provider of counterterrorism education to federal, state and local governmental audiences.

Braniff received his bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy and his master’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. Upon graduation, he worked in the nuclear counterterrorism field at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and as a research associate with the CTC Harmony Project at West Point.