About

Dewey G. Cornell is a forensic clinical psychologist and the Virgil S. Ward Professor of Education at the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development. He is the director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project and a faculty associate of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy. Throughout his clinical and academic career, Cornell has worked with juvenile and adult violent offenders, provided testimony in criminal proceedings and legislative hearings, and consulted on violence prevention efforts. He has authored more than 300 publications in psychology and education, focusing on juvenile homicide, school safety, bullying, and threat assessment. Cornell is the principal author of the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines, an evidence-based model of school threat assessment used across the United States and Canada. He also led the development of the Authoritative School Climate Survey, which measures school climate and safety conditions for students and staff. Currently, he is directing a national study of school threat assessment funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. A major emphasis of his work is achieving equity and fairness in school discipline and educational outcomes.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Computer Science
• Criminology
• Medical education
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Public relations
• Computer Security
• Applied psychology

Selected publications

• Behavioral Threat Assessment in Nontraditional Schools

  Journal of School Choice · 2026-02-23

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• School team fidelity in behavioral threat assessment.

  Journal of Threat Assessment and Management · 2026-02-26 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How do schools support students after a behavioral threat assessment?

  Journal of School Psychology · 2026-04-19

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The Role of the School Psychologist in Behavioral Threat Assessment

  School Psychology Review · 2026-05-20

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Violence following a threat assessment: Do threat classification and school safety measures matter?

  Law and Human Behavior · 2026-01-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: School threat assessment is a widely used strategy for preventing violence. However, there have been few studies of student attacks following a threat assessment. Additionally, most existing studies have been conducted within a single state, limiting the generalizability of findings. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to identify student- and school-level correlates of attack rates in a multistate sample of schools. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that most threat assessment cases will not lead to attacks, but that attacks will be more likely in more serious threat cases. We hypothesized that attacks will be lower in schools using safety staff (including school resource officers and security guards) and anonymous reporting systems. METHOD: Based on 2,349 case records from 166 schools in five U.S. states, this study examined the frequency of student attacks following a threat assessment using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines. The study also examined the relationships between threat classification and school safety measures with student attack outcomes (injury or no injury). RESULTS: There were 234 (10%) cases involving an attack, and seven (0.3%) resulted in serious injury to the target. The odds of an attack were approximately 20 times greater for serious threats compared to nonserious threats. The presence of school safety measures did not significantly correlate with student attacks or injury. CONCLUSIONS: School threat assessment teams can manage student threats of violence with few subsequent attacks but should anticipate that threat classification is strongly associated with the likelihood of an attack and therefore warrants increased intervention and preventive actions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Behavioral Threat Assessment and Equity in Exclusionary School Discipline

  School Psychology Review · 2025-02-14 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Student attacks following a school threat assessment: Statewide trends in student and case characteristics.

  Journal of Threat Assessment and Management · 2025-04-17 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Equity in law enforcement actions following a school threat assessment.

  Law and Human Behavior · 2025-08-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  These results are consistent with prior studies in smaller samples of Virginia schools. This study contributes to the policy debate over the role of law enforcement officers in schools by showing that schools using threat assessment teams with officers did not generate high rates of law enforcement actions or inequitable outcomes often observed for disadvantaged student groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Advances in the Conceptualization and Measurement of Bullying

  2025-01-31

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Building on the seminal work of Dan Olweus, this chapter summarizes advances in the conceptualization and measurement of bullying, using examples from our research team at the University of Virginia. Olweus's emphasis on the critical feature of a power imbalance in bullying was central to an expansion of the scope of bullying to include the role of social groups and school climate as well as broader application to abusive power hierarchies that generate sexual harassment, dating aggression, and bullying by teachers. Olweus's use of anonymous student surveys facilitated large-scale research and program evaluation, but measurement remains the Achilles' heel of anti-bullying programs. Improvements in measurement are needed to assess the prevalence of bullying more accurately and to facilitate more direct interventions for perpetrators and victims.

  PublisherDOI

• Referral Rates for School Threat Assessment

  Psychology in the Schools · 2025-01-27 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Although behavioral threat assessment and management (often shortened to “threat assessment”) has become widely used in US schools, no studies have systematically examined how frequently schools conduct threat assessments and how threat assessment rates vary as a function of student and school demographics. Of particular concern is that students with disabilities receive threat assessments at disproportionately high rates. This study examined the 1‐year frequency of threat assessments in a statewide sample of 611 elementary, 341 middle, and 269 high schools reporting 15,301 threat assessments, of which 41% concerned students with disabilities. We identified threat assessment rate differences associated with student grade, gender, race/ethnicity, and disability status. We further examined the association between threat assessment rates and school‐level demographic characteristics including racial/ethnic composition, prevalence of economically disadvantaged students, and proportion of students with a disability. To place these results in context, we compared findings for threat assessment with out‐of‐school suspension rates. We discuss reasons why students with disabilities might be referred for BTAM at a high rate and recommend practices for assuring their educational rights and needs are safeguarded. Evolving school threat assessment policies should recognize the practice demands placed on school staff to evaluate a substantial number of students.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Francis L. Huang

  University of Missouri

  49 shared

• Timothy R. Konold

  University of Virginia

  38 shared

• Xitao Fan

  Chinese University of Hong Kong

  18 shared

• Anne Gregory

  17 shared

• Peter L. Sheras

  17 shared

• Kathan Shukla

  Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

  15 shared

• Pooja Datta

  13 shared

• Jennifer L. Maeng

  University of Virginia

  13 shared

Labs

• Youth Violence ProjectPI

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  University of Michigan

  1981

• B.A., Psychology and Philosophy

  Transylvania University

  1977