Meet Our Team
Project Investigators
Emily Greene-Colozzi, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. Emily Greene-Colozzi is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on the situational correlates of mass public shootings, school violence, and extremist violence, and specifically, harm mitigation, prevention techniques through environmental design, and situational crime prevention. Dr. Greene-Colozzi’s research into mass public shootings has been funded by the National Institute of Justice (15PNIJ-23-GG-02408-BSCI; 2019-R2-CX-0007) and she has contributed to several federally funded projects measuring rare and mass violence, including school shootings (2020-CK-BX-0003) and cyber-extremism (DHS/NCITE). She has been involved in development, oversight, and management of survey instruments and open-source, grant-funded research, including variable operationalization, codebook development, data cleaning, and data analysis. Her work has been published in Journal of School Violence, Crime & Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Mass Violence Research, and Aggression and Violent Behavior.
Brent Klein, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Brent Klein is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Klein manages federally funded open-source databases, including The American School Shooting Study (TASSS) and U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). He recently completed one NIJ study on the pathways to school shootings and is currently completing another NIJ study using a rigorous case control design to investigate the root causes of school violence. Dr. Klein’s research interests center on generating more refined explanations of violence and producing empirical evidence to guide public policy. He uses a variety of advanced quantitative methods in his work, such as rare event methods, case-control studies, Bayesian methods, longitudinal methods, and others. He has published studies in Justice Quarterly, Criminology & Public Policy, Crime & Delinquency, the Journal of School Violence, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, among others.
Jaclyn Schildkraut, PhD
Co-Investigator
Dr. Jaclyn Schildkraut is the Executive Director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium (RGVRC) at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. She is one of the nation’s leading experts on the issue of mass public shootings, a topic she has researched for more than 15 years. She has been part of more than $1.3 million in grant-funded projects, including through the National Institute of Justice (15PNIJ-23-GG-0248-BSCI). In her role as Executive Director of the RGVRC, Dr. Schildkraut has experience with translating research findings to broad audiences, including both the public and policymakers, and working in multidisciplinary collaborations with other gun violence scholars. Her research has been disseminated through dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles in high-impact journals including Current Psychiatry Reports, Journal of School Violence and Homicide Studies, books, technical reports, policy briefs, and conference presentations, as well as through the media, including blogs and op-eds.
Advisory Board
Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD
Dr. Marisa Randazzo is the Executive Director of Threat Management at Ontic. She leads strategic consulting and services to support the development of threat assessment protocols. Previously, she led SIGMA Threat Management Associates LLC as the Chief Executive Officer and Founder. Dr. Randazzo served for ten years with the U.S. Secret Service, most recently as the agency’s Chief Research Psychologist. Among her various responsibilities, she co-directed the Safe School Initiative, the landmark federal study of school shootings conducted jointly by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education. Her team of equally qualified experts lead interactive and information sessions giving BTA teams the knowledge and confidence to support a safe school environment.
James L. Knoll, MD
Dr. James L. Knoll, IV is the current President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and Director of Forensic Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University where he holds the rank of Professor of Psychiatry. He is also Clinical Director of the Central New York Psychiatric Center, a secure inpatient forensic psychiatric hospital in Marcy, NY. He is board certified in both general and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Knoll has researched and published extensively on the phenomenon of homicide-suicide and mass homicide-suicide. He has assisted law enforcement and legal professionals in the wake of mass shooting incidents. He presented as part of the Sandy Hook Promise initiative after the Newtown Tragedy. For over a decade, he has performed forensic evaluations of students who have threatened to commit mass violence. Dr. Knoll has been an invited consultant to the National Institute of Justice regarding mass shootings, and he currently serves as the committee chair on threat assessment for the Onondaga County School Safety Task Force. He lectures nationally and teaches basic psychiatric concepts to new agents at the FBI National Academy. He has authored over two hundred publications in journals and book chapters.
Melissa A. Reeves, Ph.D, NCSP, LPC
Dr. Melissa Reeves is a nationally certified school psychologist, licensed special education teacher, licensed professional counselor, and former district coordinator of social/emotional/behavioral services. She is past president of the National Association of School Psychologists (2016-17) and has over 20 years’ experience working in public schools and a private school, in addition to providing mental health services in day and residential treatment settings. Currently, Dr. Reeves is a threat assessment & mental health specialist and senior advisor and speaker for Safe and Sound Schools, an organization founded by two parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook tragedy. She is also a consultant and trainer for Safer Schools Together (SST) and SIGMA Threat Management Associates, a Raptor Technologies Company. Dr. Reeves actively works and consults with K-12 schools regarding threat assessment cases and establishing safety, suicide, and threat assessment protocols. Dr. Reeves is a co-author of the internationally and nationally recognized NASP PREPaRE School Safety and Crisis Preparedness curriculum, has authored multiple books and publications, and travels both nationally and internationally training professionals in crisis prevention and intervention.
Kenneth Mead
Detective Kenneth Mead (retired) is the former program coordinator for the Threat Assessment Program for Targeted Violence, operated out of the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center, for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He previously held assignments including patrol, field training officer, gang investigations, counterterrorism, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and academy instructor. Detective Mead routinely testified before the Nevada Legislature regarding laws for High-Risk Protection Orders and Domestic Terrorism/Sovereign Citizen Extremism. He was the legislative liaison for the 82nd Session of Nevada Congress for Terrorism and Targeted Violence. He has provided threat assessment training to charter schools in southern Nevada, law enforcement, MGM Grand properties, and attends annual training with ATAP and the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. Lastly, Det Mead was the lead coordinator for Nevada’s version of the High Risk Protection Orders (HRPO) including coordinating with the courts in Southern Nevada, drafting legislation, and attending national working groups with PERF and the National ERPO Center.