Before founding the company, Shandon worked as a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research Centre and as an analyst for the Australian government. He holds Masters degrees in International Relations (Monash University) and Research (Macquarie University), and is currently a PhD Research Fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo.
Shandon’s research focuses on understanding the radicalisation and disengagement process, how terrorist networks are structured and operate, and how acts of politically motivated violence manifest. Such work has been published in a number of leading academic journals including Terrorism and Political Violence and the Oxford Review of Education. He is also an Associate Editor of Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, where he holds the most cited article in the history of the journal. He is currently an Adjunct Fellow at the Applied Security Science Partnership (Victoria University), and in 2014 he was named the Future Strategic Writer of the year by the Institute for Regional Security.
Shandon’s applied research focuses on helping to facilitate disengagement from violent extremism through the design, implementation and evaluation of CVE programs and policy. Since 2010 he has been involved a more then a dozen successful CT and CVE applied research grants (more than half as lead or co-lead researcher) with partner agencies including Victoria Police, the Australia New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee and the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.
Shandon has also delivered presentations at academic conferences in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, lectured in post-graduate university courses and briefed high level government and police officials on matters of terrorism, security and international relations.
Shandon speaks about violent extremism in Australia in this 4 Corners Documentary.