About STR

The Society for Terrorism Research was founded in June 2006 in reaction to the absence of any then-existing integrated and multidisciplinary organization dedicated to the area of terrorism and political violence research. The idea for STR was conceived by Dr. Samuel Justin Sinclair, who proposed the idea to his colleagues, Drs. Alice LoCicero, Michael Commons, and Sarah Ross. Together, they founded STR and comprised its initial governing board. Dr. LoCicero was elected as the first STR President.

The first public announcement of the formation of STR was made at the 2006 Conference of the American Psychological Association, during a symposium on Addressing Terrorism From a Developmental Perspective.

Also in 2006, Dr. Tali Walters joined the STR Governing Board, and led the effort to conduct the first annual STR Conference, which was held in collaboration with Coloquios Internationales sobre Cerebro y Agresión (CICA) in Madrid, Spain, in 2007.

In 2007 Dr. LoCicero was succeeded by Dr. Samuel Justin Sinclair as President of STR. During the next three years, he led STR through the signing with publisher Taylor and Francis and launch of the organization's flagship journal Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression.  Dr. Tali Walters assumed the role of STR’s third President in 2010 when Dr. Sinclair stepped down.

The Society for Terrorism Research, in collaboration with CICA, has sponsored five international conferences in Spain, Poland, Northern Ireland, Colombia, and the USA. Its sixth conference is scheduled for September 2012 in Bulgaria on the Black Sea.  STR publishes three issues a year of its journal Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. STR Board members will soon publish a second edited book on issues related to radicalization and terrorism.  STR has a global membership representing researchers and thought leaders from a wide range of social science disciplines.