Laura Dugan

Laura Dugan will be taking a post as Ralph Mershon Professor of Human Security and Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University in August 2021. While at the University of Maryland, Dugan was a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and is an active member of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism. Her research examines the consequences of violence and the efficacy of violence prevention/intervention policy and practice. She also designs methodological strategies to overcome data limitations inherent in the social sciences. Dr. Dugan is a co-principal investigator for two important ongoing event-based datasets: the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and the Government Actions in Terrorist Environments (GATE) dataset. The GTD is the most comprehensive source of terrorist incidents, as it records all known attacks across the globe since 1970. The GATE data record government actions related to terrorists and their constituencies for a select set of countries since 1987. Dr. Dugan’s research has been published in top journals in criminology, sociology, political science and public policy.  She received her Ph.D. in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, her M.A. in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1998, her M.A. in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995 and her B.F.A. in applied media arts from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1987.