Rotary Meeting – Dr. Sam Jackson

Hybrid Rotary Meeting – in person at Pizza Works or online via zoom

Dr. Sam Jackson will speak about Oath Keepers, one of the most visible elements of the Jan 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, focusing on how the group frames its ideas and actions to appear more legitimate and acceptable to a wide American audience

Dr. Jackson is an Assistant Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. He completed his Ph.D. in Syracuse University’s Social Science Doctoral Program in the Maxwell School, where he was also an affiliate of the Center for Computational and Data Sciences in the school and of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. He has also been a visiting researcher with VOX-pol, an EU-funded network of excellence on violent online political extremism.

Dr. Jackson has several lines of research. He primarily studies far-right extremism in America, particularly anti-government extremism. His second line of research investigates issues related to extremism online and responses to extremism online. In a third area, he examines behavior on social media platforms, particularly political activism (for example, around the politics of guns in America) or activity in the context of conflicts and crises (for example, during hurricanes). He also develops methods and open-source tools to analyze internet-based data.

His research has appeared in Terrorism and Political Violence, Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Media & Society, and George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. His research has also received media coverage, for example in The Washington Post, Vox, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune.