Richard Legault
Senior Advisor for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science & Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
2021
Richard L. Legault, Ph.D. (ST) is the Senior Advisor for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science at the Science & Technology Directorate at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His office is responsible for scientific advisement to DHS, technical direction of S&T programs, and fundamental research on topics such as Terrorism and Targeted Violence Prevention, Countering Foreign Influence Campaigns, Countering Human Trafficking, and technology acceptance in public agencies. He is also a member of the New York Air National Guard and Director of Operations for the 139th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron with over 30 years of combined active duty and reserve experience. Prior to this position, he was an associate research scientist and co-director of the Terrorism and Preparedness Data Resource Center (TPDRC), Empirical Analysis of Improvised Explosive Devices Project, and a statistical and methodological advisor for a number of other projects at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Albany where he also was assistant editor of the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Dr. Legault has published several scientific research articles, book chapters, and reports as well as one book on a range of issues addressing quantitative analyses of social science data including terrorism, survey analysis, policy evaluation, data usage and measurement, and violence-reduction strategies.
The catalytic power of this Summit in bringing together those who are devoting their lives to pushing back and working to confront, understand and work towards solutions around hate in our society is a noble and difficult task. The Summit not only energized those who attended but led to connecting the dots in a global network of those doing this work. The stories of the victims of hate were painful to witness but their courage in coming forward was inspirational. Those who attended left energized with the hope that by working together solutions can be forged.