Steven H Leach, PhD
Moving ideas into action.
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Steven combines an incisive mind, insatiable curiosity, effective communication, and enthusiasm for working with people to inform decision making, build out programs or projects, and achieve optimal, sustainable outcomes.
He has worked in complex contexts requiring tact and discretion, placing people and respect for others at the center of everything.
He is skilled facilitator/instructor and speaker who effectively conveys complex ideas in accessible ways.
Subject Matter Expertise
Targeted Violence Prevention
Establishing processes and programs to prevent premeditated/planned acts of violence directed at individuals, groups, locations, or symbolic targets, regardless of ideology or motivation, generally unrelated to other crimes
K-12/School Security
BTAM, target hardening, suicide prevention, anti-bullying – shifting school cultures
FTOs/Transnational
Violent Extremism
Expertise on al-Qa’ida and ISIS affiliates, especially in the Sahel and Horn of Africa
Early Warning, Early Response
Identifying signs of escalating tensions and strategizing for opportunities to deescalate
Conflict Transformation
Redirecting conflict dynamics from the potential for violence to constructive social change
Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM)
Convening/standing up multidisciplinary teams to receive and evaluate information about concerning behaviors in support of deescalating, containing, or controlling threats; team training, awareness campaigns, reporting mechanisms
Domestic Violent Extremism/ Domestic Terrorism
Racial/ethnic motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anarchist violent extremism, and other forms of domestic violent extremism, regardless of motivation or ideology
Protecting Houses of Worship
Facility security planning, vulnerability/risk assessments, prevention planning, personnel training
Community Violence Prevention
Working with coalitions of community stakeholders, mapping conflict dynamics, building sustainable resilience plans
Functional Expertise
Violence Prevention
Change Management/ Process Management
Start-Up/Ground Level
Written Communication
Oral Communication
Responsible Research
Working with stakeholders, from community partners to policy makers, to identify strategies to prevent, disrupt, and mitigate harms
Design, implement, evaluate, revise, repeat
Registered Scrum Master (1483265)
Establishing new offices, designing and implementing projects, building operations processes and procedures
Thought leadership, policy briefs, speech writing, academic research, practitioner resources, newsletters, instructor guides
Published in Washington Post, Just Security, Center for Security Studies, International Policy Digest, Democracy in Africa, and other outlets
Process facilitation, instruction, panel moderation, keynote delivery, policy briefs; virtual and in-person
Qualitative and quantitative research and analysis; statistical analysis, data analytics and visualization; inquiry design, literature reviews, primary document assessment, identification and evaluation of resources
Structured, semi-structured, and open-ended interviews; interviewing individuals and focus groups, including individuals perceived to be at risk of radicalization, civil servants/political appointees in foreign and domestic service, community leaders, law enforcement/security actors