Frank Straub, PhD, is the Director of the National Policing Institute’s Center for Mass Violence Response Studies (CMVRS). Under his leadership, the NPI has conducted in-depth studies of targeted mass violence events in San Bernardino, Kalamazoo, Orlando, Parkland, and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He has also led reviews of the police response to civil unrest in several cities. It was under his leadership, that the NPF began including mental health practitioners on its review teams to ensure counseling services or referrals were available to responders, survivors, and witnesses.

Dr. Straub is the project manager for the national Averted School Violence project, a national database, funded by the US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. He has also led a DHS-funded Countering Violent Extremism project in Boston, MA. Prior to joining the National Police Foundation, Dr. Straub served for more than 30-years in federal, state and local law enforcement. He led law enforcement/public safety agencies in New York, Indiana and the State of Washington. During his tenure in White Plains, New York he established the first police-mental health co-responder team in the state. In Spokane, he established the first cross-system mental health steering committee and ensured that all officers received a minimum of 40-hours crisis intervention training.  The SPD peer support team provided assistance to law enforcement agencies in eastern Washington and western Idaho. Dr. Straub is a Non-Resident Fellow at West Point’s Center for Combatting Terrorism, an Adjunct Professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Psychiatry; a Graduate Faculty Scholar, University of Central Florida’s Department of Psychology; and, a member of Yale University’s Department of Psychiatry and Law’s Working Group on Social Isolation and Extremism. Dr. Straub is a licensed masters-level psychologist in Michigan. He serves as a clinician on the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department’s Peer Support Team.  In collaboration with UCF RESTORES research and treatment clinic he advises law enforcement agencies across the country on crisis intervention and peer support.

Dr. Straub holds a B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Forensic Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice. He has authored articles and reports on school violence, critical incident response, community policing, and youth violence prevention. He speaks regularly at national and international conferences, has participated in numerous Congressional and White House briefings, and is a frequently invited commentator and analyst for national and international media outlets.