Student Spotlight: Graduate Student Ryan Williams Interns in DC

“This summer I have had the privilege to work with a highly effective interdisciplinary group of advanced research interns on the Unconventional Weapons and Technology team at the Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). In that capacity, I have been pursuing original research on terrorist activities related to unconventional weapons, developing briefs on the potential hazards of emerging technologies, red-teaming, expanding and improving datasets, and exploring how machine learning models can address some of the most intractable problems in the study of terrorism. I’ve learned several analytic frameworks that allow the researcher to reason about the improbable and assess the risk of the unforeseen. 

 

“The work is both satisfying and engaging. The internship affords me the added privilege of contributing, in some small measure, to a research organization dedicated to equipping policymakers and unraveling the wicked problems that give rise to terrorism. All of this is made possible through the generosity and leadership of the Clements Center, for which I am very grateful.” 

 

Ryan Williams is a graduate student at UT, completing two masters degrees: one at the LBJ School in Global Policy Studies, and another in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.