Victor Asal is Director of the Center for Policy Research, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, and the director of the Homeland Security Certificate and MPA Concentration in the Department of Public Administration & Policy at Rockefeller College. He received his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the co-director, with R. Karl Rethemeyer, of the Project on Violent Conflict, and is affiliated with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence. His research focuses on the choice of violence by non-state organizational actors, as well as the causes of political discrimination by states against different groups such as sexual minorities, women, and ethnic groups. He has been involved in research projects funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, The Department of Homeland Security, The National Science Foundation, and The Office of Naval Research.