Stephen Shellman, a prominent political scientist based at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, employs a variety of academic tools such as statistical methods and quantitative analysis to interpret and forecast global social and political trends in relation to U.S. national security. Stephen Shellman’s research and analysis focuses particularly on the threat of global terrorism and other social disruptions. In association with this line of research, Stephen Shellman runs the Violent Intranational Political Conflict and Terrorism Research Laboratory at the College of William and Mary. Clients include various governmental entities such as the Department of Defense, Strategic Command, and the Office of Naval Research.

In addition to his academic research, Stephen Shellman also works as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Research Scientist at Strategic Analysis Enterprises (SAE). SAE provides consulting services that enable its customers to predict individual and group behavior in geo-political hot spots. Clients include various governmental entities such as the Department of Defense, Strategic Command, and the Central Intelligence Agency. A recent contract with DARPA and Lockheed Martin entails the development of a geo-political early warning system called “Integrated Crisis Early Warning System.” The system utilizes sophisticated algorithms to translate news media reports into structured data suitable for interpretation.

SAE applies quantitative methodologies to real world situations using software developed by Stephen Shellman. Combining software expertise and social science methodologies, Shellman authored a suite of tools used for analyzing and classifying large amounts of electronic text.

Using Stephen Shellman’s methodological tools, a recent project for the Air Force Research Laboratory involved analyzing the activity of violent groups and forecasting their future actions. Another software tool, called Automated Sentiment Analysis, monitors blogs and other electronic media, analyzing sentiments expressed for their impact on real world events.

Also known for his educational initiatives, Stephen Shellman presents workshops on event data analysis, and has co-directed a Summer Workshop on Teaching about Terrorism (SWOTT), offered for several years at the College of William and Mary. Presentations topics at SWOTT included “Terrorism Simulations for the Classroom” and “Quantitative Approaches to Teaching and Researching Political Violence and Terrorism.”

Stephen Shellman earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Florida State University in 2003. His dissertation, Taking Turns: A Theory and Model of Government-Dissident Interactions, was honored by the Peace Science Society and recently published by VDM Verlag, Saarbrucken, Germany.