Our Team
Park Dietz, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.
Dr. Dietz is the founder and head of both the forensic consulting firm of Park Dietz & Associates and the first company devoted to workplace misconduct mitigation, Threat Assessment Group, both of which are headquartered in Newport Beach, California. In 2009, Dr. Dietz was named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential People in the Security Industry” by Security magazine. In 2010, he was awarded the “Seymour Pollack Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education in Forensic Psychiatry” by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. In 2014, Biography.com listed Dr. Dietz among the 10 most famous psychiatrists in history.
Dr. Dietz has testified and/or consulted in all 50 states, participating in such notable cases as those involving the assassination attempts on President Reagan and on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Jeffrey Dahmer and more than 25 other serial killers, Dylann Roof and more than a dozen other mass murderers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Boston Marathon Bombing), Susan Smith, Polly Klaas, the Menendez brothers (retrial), John DuPont, the Prom Mom, the Unabomber, the shootings at the Vera Wang Bridal Salon, Empire State Building, and U.S. Capital, the DC sniper cases, the school shootings at Columbine and other locations, and workplace violence and sexual abuse cases of every description. He is also widely sought after as a consultant in civil litigation arising from criminal behavior.
Threat Assessment Group (TAG) works with corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies to develop programs to prevent and manage violence and other misconduct through management consulting, training, and case consultation. TAG is the primary provider to the Fortune 500, and hundreds of other organizations use TAG’s services in managing misconduct and risks. TAG has handled thousands of threat, domestic violence, and stalking cases on behalf of corporations, celebrities, high-net worth individuals, and public officials.
Dr. Dietz is a Past President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He is a forensic psychiatrist for both the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and the New York State Police Forensic Sciences Unit. He has authored more than 100 publications. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Trauma Research, has conducted numerous studies of sex offenders, mentally disordered offenders, and violent criminals, directed a five-year study for the National Institute of Justice on mentally disordered offenders who threaten and stalk public figures, and headed a two-year privately funded study of risks to the children and families of executives and other public figures.
Dr. Dietz’s work is often cited in scholarly and popular writings, and he has been the subject of profiles on “60 Minutes II,” the A&E network, and in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, Psychology Today, Biography, and other national publications. He has appeared in many documentaries regarding crimes and violence (e.g., “Murder 9 to 5” for HBO, “The Iceman and the Psychiatrist” for HBO, “Columbine: Understanding Why” for A&E, and “Profiling Evil” for MSNBC) and has consulted on films (“The Bodyguard,” “Copycat,” “Kiss the Girls,” “Primal Fear,” “Turbulence,” and “What Lies Beneath”) and has many years of experience as a technical advisor to “Law and Order,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” and “Law and Order: Los Angeles."
Educated at Cornell and Johns Hopkins, Dr. Dietz simultaneously earned an M.D., a master’s degree in public health, and a Ph.D. in sociology. He was a psychiatry resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Chief Fellow in Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and as Professor of Law and Professor of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He is now Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii and a Distinguished Fellow in the Program in Psychology and Law at the University of California, Irvine.