Dr. John F. Morrison is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London where he is the co-programme director of the MSc in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies. He holds a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin, an MA in Forensic Psychology from University College Cork and a PhD in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. Prior to joining Royal Holloway in September 2018 John was a Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London (UEL). In 2016 he became the founding director of the Terrorism and Extremism Research Centre (TERC) at UEL. John was also a postdoctoral researcher at The International Center for the Study of Terrorism, at The Pennsylvania State University between 2010 and 2011. In that year he managed the Violent Dissident Irish Republican research project.
John is an associate editor of two leading academic journals in terrorism studies, Perspectives on Terrorism and Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. He is also the host and developer of the Talking Terror podcast. On the podcast he interviews leading experts in terrorism and counter-terrorism studies. John’s research interests include organisational splits in terrorist groups, the role of trust in terrorist involvement, violent dissident Irish republicanism, the psychology of terrorism, expert-novice differences in terrorist offenders, and the social ecology of radicalisation. He is the author or co-author of 41 peer-reviewed, published articles, with his 42nd paper – Gathering Storm: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Change and Terrorism – to be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence. His co-edited book, A Research Agenda for Terrorism Studies will be released by Edward Elgar Publishers later this year.