Wyatt Russell

Wyatt Russell (he/him) is a Senior Program Manager and Policy Analyst for PERIL’s Translational Research and Education Development (TRED) team. He manages the development and testing of resources that equip community members and practitioners with the tools needed to prevent the uptake of supremacist ideologies, propaganda, misogyny, and mis- and disinformation. Wyatt focuses on building, organizational resilience, lab-wide infrastructure, and inclusive, collaborative team cultures. Using the lab’s findings, and researching needed reforms, Wyatt also works to create policy recommendations at the local, state, and federal levels. Focused on institutional and systems-level change, Wyatt also works to develop and apply processes that ensure sustainability and equity within communities served. Wyatt’s interests include researching decentralized, community-based approaches to extremism prevention, and more broadly, frameworks for evaluating prevention. Centering community needs, he is interested in how community member decision-making can be incorporated to create transformative change, and avoid performative processes within programs. Wyatt is also interested in the connections between how research findings are translated into policy, and how policy is converted to impactful programs that serve communities to meet localized needs. He holds a Master of Public Administration from American University, and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, with a focus in Data Analysis from North Carolina State University.