Sarah Cook
Director, Security and Extremism Research Program, RTI International
2024, 2025
Sarah L. Cook is the Director of the Security and Extremism Research Program at RTI International. Her primary research interests include targeted violence, domestic terrorism prevention, hate crimes, radicalization, and victimization. She has extensive experience evaluating dozens of domestic terrorism prevention programs as lead of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation project. Ms. Cook specializes in surveys and measurement development, and is adept at cognitive interviews, qualitative interviews, focus groups, user experience testing, observations, and conducting site visits.
After joining RTI in 2007, Ms. Cook began her career as a survey methodologist with an emphasis on questionnaire development, survey design, question testing, and usability with a goal of developing accurate and reliable data collection instruments. She has worked on numerous large-scale criminal justice surveys and victimization studies, including the National Crime Victimization Survey and the National Inmate Study. Ms. Cook also has spent years partnered with criminal legal system collaborators on the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) Training and Technical Assistance Project. Throughout her career she has held leadership roles on projects funded by the Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Assistance, National Institute of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Bureau of the Census.
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