Lionel von Frederick Rawlins

Assistant Vice President, Safety and Security Operations, American University of Nigeria (AUN)

Director, Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance

Associate Professor, Criminology – Management - Leadership

Dr. Lionel C. M. von Frederick Rawlins is the Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Safety and Security Operations at the American University of Nigeria (AUN). He is also the Director of the Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CDMHA) and a faculty member. Dr. Rawlins has also served as a dissertation committee member and dissertation committee chair for many doctoral candidates and is a Fellow of the Environment and Safety Management Institute. 

Dr. Rawlins has presented before Members of Congress, the United States Institute of Peace, the Department of Defense, the Pentagon,  and the National Press Club on matters concerning the violent Boko Haram insurgency and IDPs in Nigeria and elsewhere. He has provided executive security for many world leaders, including the former President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. He has provided security for embassies/consulates and ambassadors of the US, UK, Ireland, Cameroon, Rwanda, Canada, Israel, European Union, South Africa, India, Switzerland, Venezuela, Norway, and Denmark. He has also provided security and support to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and many other media houses and NGO groups.

As a scholar, Dr. Rawlins has published and presented at international conferences and seminars, given keynote addresses, and served on television and radio as an international security analyst and expert. He has written and co-authored several books including the popular Satanic Cults and Ritualistic Crimes (Kendal Hunt, 2011). One of his many publications, Theories of Crime Causation, has been widely read and cited by students and academicians. He has also been featured in several distinguished magazines such as The Smithsonian, The Economist, Rotarian, National Geographic, and many international news publications. He has also appeared on BBC, Fox News, CBC Canada, Aljazeera, Voice of America (VOA), Gotel Africa, to name a few.

Dr. Rawlins is president and founder of The VonFrederick Group (www.vonfrederick.com), a Sacramento, California, based counter-terrorism and criminological organization, as well as a sister group, VonFrederick Global Security - Africa. Dr. Rawlins has working experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Middle East,  and the Far East, in the capacity of a counter-terrorist and a criminologist. He has appeared on numerous television interviews and talk radio, discussing homeland security and terrorism issues, as well as criminal profiling and criminal behavior.

He has been an assistant professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sociology, History, Ethnic Studies, Business Management, and Leadership. Dr. Rawlins has also lectured at Gakushuin University, in Tokyo, Japan, and is a lecturer/trainer at the Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College.

Dr. Rawlins also worked as the Executive Director of a facility that housed teenage female gang members involved in drugs, prostitution, and extremely violent crimes. He was the administrator of another facility for extremely violent adolescent boys affiliated with gangs.  He has been Head of Security for major private companies and is a consultant on school violence. He has spoken, written, and published extensively on the ritualistic crimes of Satanic cults.