Megan McBride, Ph.D.

Megan K. McBride is an expert on terrorism, extremism, radicalization, and disinformation. Her recent work focuses on psychosocial risk factors for radicalization to violent extremism, vulnerability and resilience to mis-/dis-/mal-information, and evaluating the efficacy of programs for preventing and countering violent extremism and programs for reintegration.

McBride is a former research associate at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this capacity, she contributed to a portfolio of work focused on evaluating the efficacy of countering violent extremism and of reintegration programming, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Justice, and NATO. Before joining CNA, McBride was an intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency for five years. During her tenure with the US government, she spent time in both Jordan (2008) and Iraq (2007–2008).

McBride has a PhD in religious studies from Brown University, where her research focused on the relationship between religion and terrorism. She also has a Master of Arts in government from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Arts from the Great Books program at St. John's College, and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Drew University.