Schildkraut is widely cited and accomplished gun violence scholar and one of nation’s foremost experts on school safety and mass public shootings

Albany, NY — The Rockefeller Institute of Government is pleased to announce Dr. Jaclyn Schildkraut as the new executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. Schildkraut, who currently serves as the Consortium’s interim executive director, will become executive director after a year of leading the Consortium’s more than 50 interdisciplinary gun violence researchers across eight states and territories.

Amid a rising tide of crime and firearm-involved violence across the US, evidence-based policy analysis and recommendations are essential to efforts from policymakers to reduce gun violence. Schildkraut, a widely cited and accomplished gun violence scholar, will oversee a portfolio of multidisciplinary research across various aspects of the gun violence issue, including firearm suicides and homicides, domestic violence, mass public shootings, school safety, survivor trauma, accidental deaths, and more.

“No one is better suited to take the reins of this policy-oriented network of researchers than Jaclyn Schildkraut,” said Laura Schultz, executive director of research at the Rockefeller Institute. “Her profile as one of the foremost experts on school safety and mass public shootings in the nation, her passion for getting research into the hands of practitioners and policymakers, and her unparalleled administrative ability will ensure policymakers and the public are equipped with the facts and tools they need to understand and mitigate the threat posed by various forms of firearm violence.”

“I’m honored to continue to lead this exceptional group of scholars,” said Schildkraut. “While I’ve been involved with the Consortium since its start in 2018, getting to promote the work of my colleagues over the past year, expanding opportunities for collaboration within and outside our group, and connecting their research to the policy environment has been an unbelievably fulfilling experience. I’m excited to build on this important work in the years to come.”

Schildkraut is the co-author of Mass Shootings: Media, Myths and Realities (2016); Columbine, 20 Years Later and Beyond: Lessons from Tragedy (2019); and Lockdown Drills: Connecting Research and Best Practices for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents (2022). She served as the editor on two additional volumes—Mass Shootings in America: Understanding the Debate, Causes, and Responses (2018) and Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law (3rd edition; 2022). She has also published more than 30 scholarly articles on topics related to mass and school shootings that appear in journals such as the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Homicide Studies, Journal of School Violence, Victims & Offenders, School Psychology Review, Educational Policy, Security Journal and Crime Prevention and Community Safety.

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