David Gersten

Acting Director - Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

David Gersten is a Senior Executive in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) serving as the Department’s Acting Director for the Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP).  Leading this entity and its predecessor offices, David employs a range of measures intended to prevent terrorists from radicalizing individuals to violence in the United States.  David was the first Senior Executive in the United States government to work exclusively on countering violent extremism (now referred to as terrorism prevention) when he served as the DHS CVE Coordinator beginning in July of 2014.  

From 2006-2014, David served as Director of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) Programs Branch in the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.  He was responsible for promoting respect for civil rights and civil liberties by advising Department leadership and personnel, and state and local partners. Gersten led efforts to communicate with individuals and communities whose civil rights and civil liberties may be affected by DHS activities, informing them about policies and avenues of redress, and promoting appropriate attention within the Department to their experiences and concerns.  The CRCL Programs Branch included units dedicated to conducting Impact Assessments, engagement with American Arab, Muslim and other religious and ethnic communities affected by DHS security policies, training for DHS personnel and partners, appraisal of immigration and refugee policy, fulfillment of international civil rights and human rights treaties, and review of how the Department’s use of technology and its approach to information sharing, screening and Intelligence gathering impact civil liberties.  

Gersten has testified before Congress on radicalization to violence and on intelligence information sharing.  He has appeared in numerous TV, radio and print stories examining a wide range of policy issues.

Before joining DHS, Mr. Gersten led customer service, FOIA and public relations efforts for the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, the largest civil rights enforcement agency in the U.S. federal government.  Prior to his work at the Department of Education, he served as Executive Director of the Center for Equal Opportunity, providing assistance and scrutiny for the public and private sector on civil rights, immigration and assimilation policy making.  In the mid-1990s he directed human resources, recruitment and training for AAC Associates, Inc., a data communications and government services company.  Mr. Gersten also spent four years as Director of Education for the Leadership Institute an educational foundation dedicated to identifying, training and placing young people in public policy positions. Gersten is a native of Denver, Colorado and is the proud parent of five children, including seventeen year old triplets.