With research that “forces us all to rethink what we call terrorist 'groups/ organizations,' showing us their heterogeneity and fluidity,” START’s Erin Miller recently won the Terrorism Research Initiative’s award for the best doctoral dissertation on terrorism and counterterrorism in 2015.
Miller’s “Patterns of Collective Desistance from Terrorism,” was judged to be the best among dissertations submitted by scholars from around the world and on topics of terrorism/counterterrorism or closely related forms of political violence and armed conflict.
The TRI jury noted that Miller’s sheer scope of work was impressive – linking tens and thousands of event data to hundreds of terrorist organizations over four decades – and that her work had policy relevance beyond its academic merits. They also credit Miller with being the driving force of START’s Global Terrorism Database, further lauding her ability to see both the possibilities and the limitations of what can be done with its data.
Miller’s dissertation summary article, “Patterns of collective desistance from terrorism: Fundamental measurement challenges,” appears in the October issue of Perspectives on Terrorism.