On Nov. 12 and 13, Virginia Tech will host a gathering of people from all of those categories to confer, debate, and make recommendations about violence prevention.
Dan Olweus of the University of Bergen in Norway, a leading expert on bullying among young people, will discuss documented ways to reduce bullying in schools. The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is used in schools across Europe and the United States, including in the Montgomery County school system.
The summit is called the International Summit on Transdisciplinary Approaches to Violence Prevention. Workshop participants are drawn from academia, the military, law enforcement, and other walks of life. Leading experts on violence prevention involved in the summit include
- Felton Earls of Harvard Medical School, a professor of psychiatry and expert on the consequences of children's exposure to urban violence;
- Linda Langford of the U.S. Department of Education, an expert on suicide prevention and violence prevention at colleges and universities;
- Col. John Metz, a 1982 Virginia Tech distinguished military graduate and counterterrorism expert whose leadership roles in the U.S. Army include Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Iraqi Freedom;
- John Monahan of the University of Virginia, an expert in psychology, psychiatry, and law who is a published author on risk assessment and predicting violent behavior; and
- Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania, an expert on antisocial and violent behavior and a researcher in neuropsychology.
