Senior Behavioral Scientist, RAND

Todd C. Helmus is a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation and a member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty. He specializes in disinformation, terrorism, and social media. Helmus’ latest research focuses on ways to counter Russian disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe and assess the impact of international counter violent extremism campaigns. His research also focuses on preventing violent extremism in the U.S. military, identifying ways to enlist key influencers in support of U.S. strategic communications, and detecting and countering online conspiracy theories. Helmus has served as a deployed advisor to U.S. commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan and led studies on U.S. efforts to train Afghan special operations forces. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Wayne State University.