Dr. Forster is a professor emeritus of Security & Risk Analysis in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), and an affiliate professor in Penn State’s School of International Affairs. As a member of a number of research centers, he studies risk and crisis management, situation awareness, social network analysis, counterterrorism policies and strategies. His work includes using simulations and tabletop exercises to improve command and control in counterterrorism and engaging government and civil society in addressing terrorist threats. Dr. Forster is the co-chair of the NATO/OSCE Partnership for Peace Consortium Combating Terrorism Working Group (CTWG), co-editor of NATO’s Counter Terrorism Reference Curriculum and co-course academic director of NATO's Defence Against Terrorism course.
Dr. Forster’s primary areas of interest are terrorism/counter-terrorism, risk and crisis management, and national and homeland security. Forster has co-developed a course on cybersecurity for the US government, facilitated international counterterrorism tabletop exercises and led grants exploring process and technology integration to improve law enforcement’s situational awareness. He is the co-author of Multinational Military Intervention, Stephen J. Cimbala & Peter K. Forster 2008 and Cognitive Systems Engineering Michael D. McNeese & Peter K. Forster, 2017, has authored articles on using technology in counter-terrorism, extremist recruitment models in the United States, understanding distributed team cognition in crisis situations, and American foreign policy and interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Dr. Forster holds a PhD. in Political Science (International Relations) from Penn State.