Dr. John Nicoletti
Defusing Violence
There are few people in the world who understand the complexities and behavior leading to school violence and the need for trauma recovery like Dr. John Nicoletti does.
Nicoletti is a board-certified specialist in police and public safety psychology. In addition to police psychology, he specializes in identifying, assessing, and defusing attack-related behaviors, workplace violence prevention, and trauma recovery.
Following school tragedies, Nicoletti is often called upon to lead the district debrief process, helping leaders, administrators, educators, and school safety teams effectively manage the aftermath of a crisis. He works with numerous agencies and schools around the country on developing protocols and threat management for insider threats of violence. He was on scene at the April 20, 1999, Columbine school shooting and the Platte Canyon High School shooting in September 2006. He also responded to the Aurora theater shooting in July 2012.
Nicoletti was selected to be part of an investigative team for the Virginia Tech and Arapahoe High School shootings. He also was part of a team to develop mental health intervention programs for miners in the Australian Outback. In his other area of specialization, Nicoletti and his staff provide pre-employment psychological screenings for various law enforcement and fire departments, as well as screenings for deployment to isolated environments such as Antarctica and the Outback of Australia.
Nicoletti has written three books in the areas of violence. He has provided on-site assistance in trauma recovery for various mass casualty and line of duty death events. Nicoletti was invited to be a trainer for the Department of Energy National Insider Threat Task Force this last July and provided assistance to the Department of Energy on improving their Human Reliability Program for security clearances. Most recently, he presented to various Department of Defense intelligence agencies on dealing with inside threats of violence. Nicoletti was selected as one of two psychologists to be a member of the Valor Project, which is developing best practices for officer wellness and resiliency.