Dr. William Tafoya has joined PD&A as an expert on cybercrime, terrorism, and national security.
Dr. Tafoya’s extensive experience is reflected in his previous positions:
He was a Professor at the Henry Lee College of Criminal Justice of the University of New Haven, where he taught masters and doctoral level courses in intelligence studies, cybercrime investigation, and research methods from 2002-2019, retiring as Professor Emeritus.
Since retiring, he has taught Digital Forensics, Cybercrime Investigation, and Research Methods at the University of South Florida.
He served as an analyst in the Intelligence Unit of the Computer Sciences Corporation’s National Defense Group, prior to its merger with HP Enterprise.
He served as Dean, Professor, and Director of the Information System Security & Education Center of the National Intellectual Property Law Institute.
He served as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1975-1995.
Among Dr. Tafoya’s experiences during his 20 years in the FBI were undercover work in three sting operations in criminal cases in Washington, DC, work on counterintelligence matters in the San Francisco Division (1990-1992), and serving as a behavioral advisor to the UNABOM Task Force (1991-1993). His 1993 behavioral assessment of the Unabomber—two years before the arrest of Theodore Kaczynski in 1995—has been chronicled in numerous media accounts and books about the Unabomber. He is the first law enforcement officer to make investigative use of the Internet in the Unabomber investigation in 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing investigation in 1995.
While on loan from the FBI from July 1989 – July 1990, he served as a Congressional Research Fellow with the 101st Congress in Washington, DC. There he conducted research on the future of high technology and its potential applications in law enforcement. He periodically briefed Members of Congress on his assessments. He remains the only law enforcement officer to be invited to serve in this capacity.
Before and after these operational assignments, Dr. Tafoya was assigned as an instructor at the FBI Academy where he was part of the Behavioral Science Unit from 1980-1991. There he was part of a team of three Ph.D.’s that developed an automated profiling system based on Artificial Intelligence.
Park Dietz, MD, MPH, PhD, commented:
I first met Bill at the FBI Academy, where we regularly crossed paths in the Behavioral Science Unit. Although he wasn’t always free to discuss what he was working on in the counterintelligence sphere, he was invariably congenial and well-liked, and his colleagues admired his work with the late futurist Alvin Toffler and Bill’s status as an authority on the future of technology in law enforcement and national security.
Since 2000, Dr. Tafoya has twice served on Cybercrime Advisory Boards of the U.S. Department of Justice. He currently serves on the University of South Florida’s Cybercrime Advisory Board. As an Academic Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, in 2009 he interviewed convicted/confined terrorists in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Dr. Tafoya has lectured and consulted throughout the US and has delivered invited lectures in Australia, Canada, England, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Switzerland. He has published his research on the profiling of computer hackers and other subjects.
His PhD was awarded in 1986 by the University of Maryland. He earned an MPA from the University of Southern California in 1974 and a BS from San Jose State University in 1973. Before college, he served in combat in Vietnam with the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, US Marine Corps.