Brent R. Klein, Ph.D.

Brent R. Klein, Ph.D., earned his Doctorate in criminal justice from Michigan State University in 2020. He is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice (tenured) at the University of South Carolina and holds an Adjunct Professor of Practice appointment at Wake Forest University’s School of Professional Studies. His research and teaching are nationally recognized and driven by a commitment to bridging theory, empirical evidence, and actionable public policy to reduce targeted violence and human suffering.

Klein’s scholarship focuses on the causal architecture of behavior and how aggression is produced, particularly the mechanisms that turn situational pressure into violent action. His current work focuses on three of these: the momentary psychological state that drives a person to act aggressively, how intentions do and do not translate into behavior, and a framework for classifying interpersonal behaviors that standard models overlook. He also conducts applied policy evaluation, using causal-inference methods to test whether firearm laws reduce violence, including studies of extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) and child access prevention laws.

He has led or co-led nearly $3 million in federally funded research projects, developing original datasets on school shootings, ideological extremism, firearm-related harm, and mass casualty events. He has more than 50 scholarly works, with research findings published in the field’s leading journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, Criminology, the Annual Review of Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Criminology & Public Policy, and has been cited in White House briefings, congressional testimony, and national media.

Klein is the sole creator of the Pathways to School Shootings longitudinal study and co-developer of The American School Shooting Study and Comparative Gun Violence Project. His methodological innovations — including open-source data collection, causal inference, trajectory modeling, and social network analysis — have advanced both theory and practice in violence prevention.

At USC, Professor Klein’s contributions have been recognized with the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Fellowship for Exceptional Research and Teaching and the Outstanding Faculty Article of the Year award at USC, among other awards and honors. Klein co-directs the Firearm Violence Research and Reduction (FVRR) Lab and is a founding member of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice’s Consortium on Violence Research. Beyond USC, he serves as an Affiliate Scholar with the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium, U.S. Extremist Crime Database, and the University of Arkansas Terrorism Research Center (TRC), and contributes to national policy discussions on firearm legislation and threat assessment.