Terrorism, Intelligence and Homeland Security, 3rd edition

About our authors

Robert W. Taylor is a retired (2023), tenured full professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Texas at Dallas. The department was recently ranked fifth in the world in academic excellence based on the strength of its Ph.D. program. Prior to this position, he was the director of the Executive Master’s in Justice Administration and Leadership Program and the former program head for the Public Affairs Program at UT-Dallas. Both are academic programs integrating the traditions of management, governmental affairs, policy analysis, and decision science in the public sector. The Public Affairs Program hosted 1 of the largest graduate degree programs on campus, including doctoral (Ph.D.) and master’s degrees in Public Affairs and Public Administration.

From January 2008 through 2010, Bob was the executive director of the W.W. Caruth Jr. Police Institute at Dallas (CPI). The institute was established through a $9.5 million grant from the Communities Foundation of Texas. Bob was a principal party to the development of the institute and was appointed the founding director by the University of North Texas System. The primary mission of the institute is to provide direction and coordination of major training and research projects for the Dallas Police Department. The institute represents a national “think tank” on policing strategies focused on major urban cities in the United States. He remains a “Scholar-in-Residence” at the institute. From 1996 to 2008, Bob was professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Texas. He served in this capacity for 13 years, and under his direction, the department gained national prominence, especially with the establishment of the Caruth Police Institute.

In 1995, Dr. Taylor took a leave of absence from university administration and teaching to join Emergency Resources International, Inc., the parent company of the famed “Red Adair” firefighters. His duties as senior vice president, Crisis Management Division, included liaising with foreign governments and authorities, conducting extensive contract negotiations, and strategically developing a worldwide communication and information system. Bob’s major project was serving as team leader on the largest oil spill in history (3 million barrels), located in the remote Nenets District of Russia, over 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

For the past 40 years, Dr. Taylor has studied criminal justice administration, specifically focusing on police responses to crime and terrorism, with an emphasis on issues in the Middle East. He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, meeting several heads of state in the region. He has acted as a consultant to numerous federal, state, and local agencies. Since September 11, 2001, Bob has been a consultant to the US Department of Justice, working with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) as a lead instructor in the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program (SLATT). He has also worked extensively throughout the Middle East, especially in the country of Turkey. He has been an instructor for the U.S. Department of State, Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) Program (2001 to 2006) and taught internationally in the Executive Seminar on Cyber Terrorism presented to executives of foreign governments. Dr. Taylor holds appropriate top secret national security clearances through the JPASS system (now archived).

Dr. Taylor has authored or coauthored over 250 articles, books, and manuscripts. Most of his publications focus on police administration and management, police procedures, international and domestic terrorism, drug trafficking, and criminal justice policy. His articles appear in numerous journals, including Defense Analysis (University of Oxford, England Press), the ANNALS(American Academy of Political and Social Sciences), Police Quarterly, Crime and Delinquency, and the Police Chief (International Association of Chiefs of Police). Dr. Taylor is coauthor of 2 leading textbooks, Police Administration: Structures, Processes, and Behavior (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Publishing, 2021), currently in its 10th Edition, and Criminal Investigation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2023), currently in its 13th edition. These texts are used in over 500 universities, colleges, and police departments throughout the United States. He is also the senior author of Juvenile Justice: Policies, Practices, and Programs (McGraw-Hill, 2023) in its 6th Edition (a new 7th Edition is in process), Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism (Pearson, 2024) in its 5th Edition, and Police Patrol Allocation and Deployment (Pearson, 2011).

Dr. Taylor has an extensive background in academic and professional criminal justice, having taught at 4 major universities and serving as a sworn police officer and major crimes detective (lateral rank of sergeant) in Portland, Oregon, for nearly 7 years.

In 1984, Bob was appointed as a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violence at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, conducting various studies involving international and domestic terrorism, police training and management, public violence and homicide, computerized mapping, and international drug trafficking. He continues to conduct research in these areas and is the recipient of numerous grants and contracts (over $20 million in funded projects). His latest work is concentrated in 4 areas: (1) quality improvement in police agencies through advanced leadership and management practices; (2) international terrorism, especially Middle Eastern groups and the spread of radical Islam; (3) evaluation of policing strategies in the United States; and (4) intelligence analysis, fusion centers, and decision-making, particularly during protracted conflict or crisis situations.

In 2004, the International Justice Mission in Washington, D.C., asked Bob to assist in the training of the Cambodian National Police on child sex slavery and human trafficking as part of a large project funded through the U.S. Department of State ($1 million). His interest and research in this area have led to a leadership role in designing and developing training efforts in the United States aimed at raising awareness of the human trafficking tragedy for American law enforcement officers, funded in part through the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Taylor focuses on the nexus between human trafficking, drug trafficking, and the financing of terrorist incidents internationally and domestically. He continues this important work as a guest lecturer, speaking at conferences internationally on these subjects.

In 2003, Dr. Taylor was awarded the University of North Texas Regent’s Lecture Award for his work in the Middle East. In March 2008, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences presented Bob with the prestigious O.W. Wilson Award “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to police education, research and practice.”

Acting through his company, Magellan Research Corporation, as President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Taylor has been a consultant to the US Army, the US Marine Corps, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of the Treasury, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the US Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the US Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the US Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Police Foundation, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and numerous state and local municipalities and private corporations. He has also conducted significant training in the US protectorates of the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and Saipan, as well as in the countries of Canada, England, France, Switzerland, Thailand, Cambodia, Barbados, Northern Cyprus, Bahrain, Venezuela, Russia, Finland, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Singapore, and Turkey. He is an active member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (elected National Chair of the ACJS Police Section in 2002), the American Society for Public Administration, and the American Society of Criminology.

Dr. Taylor is a graduate of Michigan State University (Master of Science, 1973) and Portland State University (Doctor of Philosophy, 1981).

Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D., blends over 2 decades of frontline counterterrorism experience with rigorous academic scholarship. He is an Associate Professor in the Homeland Security Program at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, where he also directs both the Center for Homeland Security and the Master of Arts in Homeland Security (MAHS) program. Concurrently, he serves on the faculty of the Master’s Program in Applied Intelligence at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies in Washington, D.C., teaching counterterrorism and intelligence. He is also a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Dr. Yayla earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Criminal Justice and Information Sciences from the University of North Texas in 2005 and previously chaired the Department of Sociology at Harran University in Turkey.

A 20-year veteran of the Turkish National Police’s Counterterrorism and Operations Department, Dr. Yayla led the Counterterrorism branch in Şanlıurfa from 2010 to 2013. During a period marked by some of the most intense terrorist activity in the region’s history, he oversaw hundreds of investigations and operations, as well as conducted thousands of interviews with suspects drawn from diverse organizations and ideologies. His work extended beyond domestic borders through collaborative international operations and diplomatic engagements, providing him with a unique perspective on both policy formulation and practical fieldcraft.

In parallel with his operational career, Dr. Yayla has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on topics such as radicalization and recruitment processes, holistic counterterrorism strategies that minimize force, and the effective use of intelligence to preempt threats. He serves on the editorial boards of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Perspectives on Terrorism, and other leading journals. Driven by a commitment to bridge theory and practice, he continues to advise senior government leaders worldwide and mentor the next generation of security practitioners, always mindful that the greatest advances in the field come from combining lived experience with thoughtful research. Dr. Yayla currently lives in Pennsylvania with his family, a small orchard, and a menagerie of 50 chickens, ducks, and cats.

Colin P. Clarke, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate at the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Clarke is also the Director of Research at The Soufan Group where his research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security, and geopolitics. Prior to joining The Soufan Group, Clarke was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he spent a decade researching terrorism, insurgency, and criminal networks. At RAND, Clarke led studies on ISIS financing, the future of terrorism and transnational crime, and lessons learned from all insurgencies since the end of World War II.

Clarke is also an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)–The Hague, a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), and a member of the “Network of Experts” at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

He serves on the editorial board of 3 of the leading scholarly journals in the field of terrorism studies: Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Perspectives on Terrorism.

Clarke has testified before Congress on numerous occasions as an expert witness on a range of terrorism-related issues, appears frequently in the media to discuss national security-related matters, and has published several books on terrorism, including his most recent, After the Caliphate: The Islamic State and the Future Terrorist Diaspora.

Clarke has briefed his research at a range of national and international security forums, including the US Army War College, US Air Force Special Operations School, Society for Terrorism Research International Conference, the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), and the Counter ISIS Financing Group (CIFG), which is part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. In 2011, he spent several months as an analyst with Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Shafafiyat at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, working for General H.R. McMaster, the former U.S. National Security Advisor, where he was responsible for analyzing criminal patronage networks in Afghanistan and how these networks fueled the insurgency.

Clarke has a Ph.D. in international security policy from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA).