Professor James Piazza to be a Conference Keynote Speaker

Pennsylvania State University Liberal Arts Research Professor of Political Science James Piazza, will be a Keynote Speaker at this year’s STR International Conference. Professor Piazza received his PhD from New York University in 1999. His research and teaching focus on terrorism, its causes and consequences.

He has authored over 30 publications on terrorism. His research tests theoretical and policy arguments about what prompts, shapes and results from terrorist attacks and activities using empirical analysis. His work has investigated a number of specific topics, including the economic, social and political roots of terrorism, the interplay between repression, human rights violations and terrorism, the relationship between state weakness and failure and terrorism, and natural resources and the narcotics trade and terrorism.

His current research examines how engagement in criminal activities affects terrorist group longevity, ethnic diaspora groups and terrorism and foreign military interventions and terrorism. At Penn State, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on terrorism and is helping to develop a new Counterterrorism option for the online Homeland Security Masters of Professional Studies program.