Peter Langman, Ph.D., is a sought-after expert on the psychology of school shooters and other perpetrators of mass violence. He conducts trainings on understanding the psychology of school shooters and identifying potential school shooters for professionals in mental health, education, and law enforcement. He has spoken on preventing school shootings at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, VA, and been hired by Homeland Security to train professionals in school safety. In 2018 he was invited by the Department of Homeland Security to participate in the National School Security Roundtable. Though his primary focus is school shooters, he has spoken at FBI Headquarters on white supremacist homegrown violent extremists and at the National Counterterrorism Center on American jihadis.
Dr. Langman served on Pennsylvania’s Joint State Government Commission’s Advisory Committee on Violence Prevention. In the wake of the Sandy Hook attack, his recommendations on preventing school shootings were presented by the CEO of the American Psychological Association to President Obama. His research on school shooters has been cited in congressional testimony on Capitol Hill.
Dr. Langman’s latest book, Warning Signs: Identifying School Shooters Before They Strike, was published in 2021. His previous book, School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in January 2015. His first book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters, was published by Palgrave Macmillan and named an Outstanding Academic Title of 2009 by the American Library Association. It has been translated into German, Finnish, Dutch, Russian, and Serbian.
Dr. Langman has been interviewed over five hundred times by media outlets in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South America, Asia, and the Middle East. He has appeared on Today, 20/20, Nightline, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Fox, and the BBC. His research on school shooters has been featured in articles carried by The New York Times, Newsweek, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Forbes, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, Yahoo! News, and thousands of other news outlets.
In 2008, Dr. Langman received the Psychology in the Media Award from the Pennsylvania Psychological Association for his work on educating the public about school shooters and school safety. In 2012, he was given the Sally K. Lenhardt Professional Leadership Award by Lesley University for his research and work on preventing school shootings. In 2016, he was the recipient of the Innovation in Research and Publication Award from the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association for his article “Multi-Victim School Shootings in the United States: A 50-Year Review.” In 2019, he received the Distinguished Contributions to School Psychology Award, and in 2020 he was honored with the Public Service Award—both from the Pennsylvania Psychological Association.
From 2018 through 2023, Dr. Langman served as a researcher with the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) of the United States Secret Service, where he contributed to multiple reports, including Protecting America's Schools, Averting Targeted School Violence, Mass Attacks in Public Spaces: 2019, and Mass Attacks in Public Spaces: 2016-2020.
Dr. Langman also served as a researcher with Police Foundation and was the lead author of their report, A Comparison of Averted and Completed School Attacks from the Police Foundation Averted School Violence Database. His articles have appeared in American Behavioral Scientist, Aggression and Violent Behavior, The Journal of Campus Behavioral Intervention, The Journal of Health Service Psychology, Forensic Digest, Campus Safety Magazine, Police Chief Magazine, The Pennsylvania Psychologist, Criminology and Public Policy, The Psychology of Men and Masculinities, and The International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice.
In addition to his research on school shootings, Dr. Langman served ten years as president of the Greater Lehigh Valley chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and served three years on the board of the Lehigh Valley chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). He serves on the advisory board of the National Association of Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment (NABITA).
Dr. Langman received his B.A. in psychology from Clark University, his M.A. in counseling psychology from Lesley College, and his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Lehigh University.
In 2020, he became the Director of Research and School Safety Training at Drift Net Securities.