Rate My Professor John Terpinas

John Terpinas is a Professor of the Practice and Faculty Lead in the Security Domain at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies. He holds a JD from California Western School of Law. Terpinas joined Northeastern following a three-year tenure as an assistant professor of national security, intelligence, and criminal justice at Fairmont State University in West Virginia. Prior to entering academia full-time, he served a distinguished 21-year career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), retiring in 2016 as a Supervisory Special Agent. During his FBI tenure, he held leadership positions in the National Security Division and Counterterrorism programs both in the field and at headquarters. Notable roles included Director of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Budapest, Hungary; FBI Chair and assistant professor of national security studies at the Eisenhower School of National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.; adjunct instructor at the University of Virginia; and FBI leadership instructor at the Leadership Development Institute in the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. He also served as Director of Law Enforcement and Investigations in the White House Executive Office of the President, Homeland Security Council, and Counterterrorism Directorate, as well as a counterterrorism specialist in the FBI Chicago Division, where he was a member of the enhanced SWAT Team and a certified Special Agent Bomb Technician.

Before his FBI career, Terpinas worked as an assistant state’s attorney in the criminal division of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office in Chicago, Illinois. His academic specialties encompass counterterrorism, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, national security, homeland security, and inter-agency operations. Terpinas currently teaches courses such as Unconventional Threats to Homeland Security, which examines the operational and organizational dynamics of terrorism by individuals, small groups, and large organizations, including indigenous actors and foreign threats. His research interests focus on the criminalization of political differences, the impairment of civil discourse, and associated societal harms. In 2020, he was promoted to professor of the practice and faculty lead for Northeastern’s Homeland Security, Strategic Intelligence & Analysis, and Criminal Justice programs.