Gregory Saathoff M.D. is Associate Professor of Research in Public Health Sciences, and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine. He also serves as Executive Director of the University of Virginia’s Critical Incident Analysis Group (CIAG). In this capacity, he directs the operation of the group, which operates as a “ThinkNet” that provides multidisciplinary expertise in developing strategies that can prevent or mitigate the effects of critical incidents. To that end, he has developed a series of case reviews relating to critical incidents and the Constitution, the terrorist threat abroad, protecting symbols of democracy, the threat of bioterrorism, the relationship of domestic intelligence collection to terrorism, the sniper event in the National Capital Region, hostage taking in Iraq, The Colombia Hostage Rescue, Cyber Incursions, and Somali Piracy. In 1996 he was appointed to a Commission charged with developing a methodology to enable the FBI to better access non-governmental expertise during times of crisis. In that regard, Dr. Saathoff has since 1996 served as the Conflict Resolution Specialist to the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. In this role, he consults with the Crisis Negotiation Unit and the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. He serves as a Senior Fellow of the GWU Homeland Security Policy Institute and a IIIA Fellow at James Madison University. In 2003, he served as a Visiting Professor at James Madison University. Over the past twenty years, he has taught medical students and consulted to the Virginia Department of Corrections, where he assesses and treats violent and nonviolent offenders who are diagnosed with major mental illness.

During the 1st Gulf War, Dr. Saathoff was called from reserve duty and deployed as a medical corps psychiatrist overseas, earning the Army Commendation Medal in 1991. Dr. Saathoff retired from the Army Reserves with the rank of Major. A member of the University of Virginia’s Kuwait Project, he studied societal trauma in Kuwait subsequent to the Iraqi occupation. Dr. Saathoff has served on the faculty of the Saudi-U.S. Universities Project located at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In addition to the Middle East, his work has taken him to projects in the former Soviet Union, Western Europe and Australia. He was privileged to assemble and lead a University of Virginia medical team as the U.S. component of the international medical group charged with diagnosis and treatment of the poisoning of President Viktor Yushchenko in 2004. He has served as an expert witness in cases brought by the U.S. Government in Federal Court relating to violent crime, terrorism, and treason. Oak Ridge Associated Universities has named Dr. Saathoff to expert panels in behavioral science and infrastructure.  Regarding radicalization in U.S. prisons, Dr. Saathoff has testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs as well as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

From 2000-2005 he served as the Chair of the Committee on International Relations for the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. In March of 2006, he was appointed to the Research Advisory Board of the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. He has written The Crisis Guide to Psychotropic Drugs and Poisons for the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit, and was a co-author of the FBI’s threat assessment monograph: The School Shooter. In addition to this, he has published in the areas of the personality disorders, police psychiatry, post-traumatic stress disorders, public response to weapons of mass destruction, and personnel reliability and its relationship to biosecurity and national security. He has co-authored Criminal Poisoning: Clinical and Forensic Perspectives, published in 2010. Dr. Saathoff serves on the Board of ParadeRest, which helps dedicated communities work together to welcome home and express their gratitude to local military personnel, veterans, and their families through tickets to entertainment, arts and sports events. ParadeRest is a program operated by Ed Meese's organization, the Research Strategies Network (RSN). Dr. Saathoff and CIAG are grateful to the support that RSN continues to give CIAG in performing its duties. Dr. Saathoff is married and has three grown children.