Stephen M. Shellman, Ph.D.

Stephen M. Shellman founded and currently serves as the CEO and Chief Research Scientist at Strategic Analysis Enterprises, Inc. He also directs the Violent Intranational Political Conflict and Terrorism (VIPCAT) Research Laboratory at the College of William and Mary. Prior to his venture with SAE, Dr. Shellman served as Visiting Assistant Professor at William and Mary and as Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia. He has also previously held positions with the University of Maryland's START Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism and the University of Georgia's Center for International Trade and Security. Since 2001, Dr. Shellman's work has been continously funded by the National Science Foundation. In addition to extensive speaking engagements in industry and academia, Dr. Shellman has published a book and numerous articles on political violence with his work also being described in media outlets such as The Atlantic and The New Scientist.

Dr. Shellman received his Ph.D. in Political Science with specialties in international relations, comparative politics, and research methods from Florida State University. He is widely recognized as an expert at generating dynamic models of political conflict with a particular focus on strategic interactions among relevant actors (i.e., governments dissidents, ethinic and religious groups, etc.) engaged in political struggles.

Sean O'Brien, Ph.D.

Dr. Sean O達rien is Executive Vice President and Senior Scientist at SAE, Inc. His responsibilities include program management, strategic planning, developing new clients and business areas, and establishing partnerships within government and industry. O達rien is an award-winning analyst and seasoned project director. He began his post-graduate career as an Army operations research analyst, where he developed several long-and short-term crisis monitoring and forecasting models for customers in the DoD, Intelligence community, State Department, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and allied governments. His mostly unclassified work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, was successfully replicated by US labs, and professors and graduate students around the world. His work also received several awards including the Director痴 Award for Excellence (Center for Army Analysis), Wilbur B. Payne Award (US Army), and Richard H. Barchi Prize (Military Operations Research Society). As a result of these accomplishments, O達rien was asked by the DARPA Director in 2006 to take a position as one of the first social science Program Managers at DARPA, where he developed, managed, and successfully transitioned to USSOUTHCOM, USPACOM, and USSTRATCOM the Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS). O達rien has a strong commitment to scientific integrity, analytic transparency, and operational utility. During his 14 years of government service, O達rien was a frequent consultant and advisor on numerous efforts to evaluate modeling and simulation capabilities throughout the defense and intelligence communities. By serving on proposal evaluation review boards for DARPA, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), Office of Naval Research (ONR), and Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO), he helped to shape the Department of Defense痴 multiyear investments in human, social, cultural, and behavioral (HSCB) research (over $300M+) . O達rien received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, all in political science.

Patrick Bentley

Patrick Bentley serves as an Associate Research Scientist at SAE where he contributes his theoretical, modeling, and data expertise to the various projects on which SAE works. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in political science at Vanderbilt University with a focus on international relations theory and research methodology with an emphasis on quantitative empirical analysis and game theoretic modeling. He expects to have his degree in-hand by August 2012. He also brings military experience to SAE having attended the United States Military Academy. Prior to starting graduate school, he was a research assistant for Dr. Shellman at the University of Georgia, where he worked on Project Civil Strife (PCS) which served as the base data and springboard for the Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS) dataset.

Hans Leonard

Hans Leonard serves as Data Management Project Manager at SAE, responsible for data management and manipulation, research design, test and evaluation of data, and revolutionary ideas for software and modeling improvement. Mr. Leonard graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations. Along with his economics and political science background, he brings social science theory, case/history knowledge, data management expertise, and extensive automated coding experience. Mr. Lenoard lends his statistical and programming skills to the team when needed.

Brian Levey

Brian Levey works as our Senior Research Scientist at SAE where his responsibilities include model generation, model transparency, research design, test and evaluation, and statistical analysis of data. Mr. Levey also acts as liason with William and Mary, organizing and managing research assistants. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Political Science with a focus on SS Methodology and expects to complete this effort in early 2011. Mr. Levey brings a strong political science and statistics background to the team and has been unofficially named the Chief of Randomness. His areas of interest include research design specialization, measurement models, counterfactual analysis, and Bayesian Statistics.

Robert Sigman

Robert Sigman works as a Research Analyst where his responsibilities include evaluating software output, identifying areas of improvement, assisting with current coding efforts, and managing part-time research assistants. Mr. Sigman attended Georgia College where he was exposed to a broad Liberal Arts curriculum. Mr. Sigman brings real world business and political research skills from his prior professional career to help assist SAE coordinated efforts.

Marcia Zangrilli, Ph.D.

Marcia Zangrilli is the Senior Computer Scientist at SAE, responsible for managing the maintenance and development of SAE's automated event coding and sentiment analysis tools. Dr. Zangrilli earned her Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary where her research focused on performance analysis and network measurement. Prior to working at SAE, she gained extensive software development experience working for Google, Inc. and SIPeerior Technologies, a VoIP company that she helped found. Through her industry experience, she has gained significant experience with performance analysis, real-time application development, and natural language processing.