Dr. Megan McBride

Senior Research Scientist - CNA's Institute for Public Research

Dr. Megan K McBride is a Senior Research Scientist at CNA’s Institute for Public Research, where she is the Director of the DVERT Center, an NIJ Center of Excellence dedicated to collaborating with practitioners on issues related to domestic terrorism and targeted violence prevention. She is a 2024 Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar and a former Research Associate in the Division of Policy Translation and Leadership Development at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has led domestic terrorism and targeted violence research and evaluation projects for a range of sponsors, including the Department of Homeland Security Office of Science and Technology (DHS S&T), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and the City of Houston. Before joining CNA, she served as a Middle East intelligence analyst with the National Security Agency for five years. During her tenure with the US government, she spent time in both Iraq (2007–2008) and Jordan (2008). McBride has a PhD 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.

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