Steve Shellman

Background

About Steve Shellman

Experienced research scientist with over two decades of success across the U.S. defense, national security, and academic sectors. Deep expertise in data science, machine learning, statistical modeling, forecasting, counterfactual analysis, and behavioral analytics. Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary research teams and deliver analytic solutions and SaaS technologies to operational customers. Skilled in intelligence analysis, discourse and sentiment analysis, political violence and terrorism studies, foreign policy, international relations, business analytics, financial modeling, project capture, and program management. Dr. Stephen Shellman began his career in academia, developing predictive models of human behavior—particularly the conditions under which groups and states resort to violence or terrorism to achieve strategic objectives. He was a pioneer in applying automated natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract structured behavioral, sentiment, and rhetorical indicators from unstructured text. His work was continuously funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2001 to 2011 and led to over 30 peer-reviewed publications, a book, influential datasets, and more than academic citations. His research and expertise carried over to the classroom where he taught courses at William & Mary on international relations, terrorism, statistics, forecasting, and data science. In 2008, Dr. Shellman founded Strategic Analysis Enterprises (SAE), Inc, a research and technology firm focused on advancing national security through cutting-edge analytics and software tools. Under his leadership, SAE played a central role in the ICEWS program and successfully transitioned critical technologies and models into the U.S. Strategic Command’s ISPAN CAT-1A Program of Record. Over the last 15+ years, he has led projects funded by DARPA, ONR, AFRL, ARL, and CTTSO—developing innovative capabilities in machine learning-based causal inference, forecasting, discourse/sentiment analysis, and data-driven course of action (COA) tools. Along the way, Shellman founded commercial firms focused on forecasting financial indicators (Signalist) and sports outcomes (PropJuice). To date, Shellman has raised over $30 Million in research and development funding from federal and private organizations. Dr. Shellman’s R&D portfolio spans academia, government, commercial firms, and defense contractors—ranging from early-stage start-ups to major integrators. This broad experience positions him to architect and deliver high-impact analytic solutions across domains.