Adam Lankford Ph.D.

Adam Lankford, Ph.D., is a criminal justice professor at The University of Alabama. He has also taught at Marymount University and The Corcoran College in Washington, D.C.

From 2003 to 2008, he helped coordinate Senior Executive Anti-Terrorism Forums for high-ranking foreign military and security personnel in conjunction with the U.S. State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance program. During this period, ATA hosted delegations from Armenia, Colombia, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan.

Dr. Lankford has published on a variety of subjects related to aggression, violence, counterterrorism, and international security. His research has been featured by media outlets in a number of countries, including Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Dr. Lankford is the author of The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, which offers unprecedented evidence that many suicide terrorists are suicidal, in the clinical sense, and are not simply driven by ideology or commitment to the cause. This directly contradicts what most experts have insisted about suicide terrorists for decades.

He is also the author of Human Killing Machines: Systematic Indoctrination in Iran, Nazi Germany, Al Qaeda, and Abu Ghraib, in which he outlined the counterterrorism possibilities for dealing with Osama bin Laden, two years before the terrorist leader's demise, and wrote that “the best scenario might be if he is killed by soldiers in a surprise attack, leaving a clearly identifiable corpse.”

Dr. Lankford received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Justice, Law & Society from American University in Washington, DC and his B.A. in English from Haverford College outside Philadelphia, PA.