Megan K McBride
Senior Research Scientist, CNA, Institute for Public Research
2024, 2025
Megan K McBride, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Scientist at CNA (a non-partisan, non-profit research and analysis organization). Her areas of expertise include extremism, terrorism, radicalization, disinformation, and the evaluation of P/CVE programs. Her recent work has focused on psychosocial risk factors for radicalization to violent extremism; vulnerability and resilience to mis-/dis-/mal-information; and evaluating the efficacy of P/CVE and reintegration programming. She has taught courses on contemporary terrorism and political violence at Brown University and Boston College; is a 2024 Distinguished Fellow of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation; and has presented her work at major scholarly conferences and been published in both peer-reviewed journals and popular outlets. She is a former Research Associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where she contributed to a portfolio of CVE research funded by DHS, NIJ, and NATO. And she is a former Middle East intelligence analyst who worked at the National Security Agency for five years. During her tenure with the US government, she spent time in both Jordan (2008) and Iraq (2007–2008). She has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Brown University where her research focused on the relationship between religion and contemporary terrorism; she also has an MA in Government from Johns Hopkins University, an MA from the Great Books program at St. John’s College, and a BA in Psychology from Drew University.
The Summit was more than empty words – it made clear that a solution-driven approach is the only way to fight hate. That’s why the working group activities, which are results driven are going to be critical in defeating violent extremism. The Summit brought together the best minds in government, private sector, academia, and civil society. Being surrounded by these experts sparked new ideas – some of which I’ve already implemented or have written about.
