Speaker Biographies

Paula Broadwell

Paula Broadwell is the Deputy Direct of the Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies, a Ph.D. candidate at the Kennedy School of Government's Public Policy Program, Harvard University, and a National Security Education Program (NSEP) Boren Fellow. She co-chairs the Harvard International Security Program student caucus and is a research assistant on Harvard's Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Paula is also an active Army Reserve officer and has worked with Special Operations Command, the FBI and other government agencies on counter-terrorism analysis and operations and has spoken to audiences in Europe, Africa, the Persian Gulf, the UN, US and foreign security agencies, and in academic settings. Her research focuses on counter-terrorism policies, the use of Special Forces and Human Intelligence in counter-terrorism; security cooperation in the Greater Middle East; and the role of multi-national corporations in terrorism risk mitigation. In support of the conference, Paula has written articles, created a video op-ed, participated in blogs and held radio interviews on the topic of women in terrorism and counter-terrorism. Paula received an MA degree in International Security and a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from the University of Denver, Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS). She has also studied (Arabic) at the University of Jordan, Amman. Paula graduated from the US Military Academy, West Point, with a BS in Systems Engineering and Political Geography.

Farhana Ali

Farhana Ali is an Associate International Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. She has done extensive research on the ideology of terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and affiliated jihadists, jihadist networks, religious extremism, and female suicide bombers.  She holds a M.A. in security policy studies from Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University; and B.A. in political science from Southwestern University.  Her articles include “London Plot Draws Attention to Potential Female Suicide Bombers” and “Muslim Female Fighters: An Emerging Trend”. 

Nichole Argo

Nichole Argo spent 2003-04 in Israel and the Palestinian Territories as a researcher for the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford, interviewing would-be suicide bombers and their communities. The present inquiry, funded for 2004-5 by the United States Institute for Peace, studies the role that relationships—shaped in part by community structure—play in bomber mobilization, and weak-against-strong resistance in general. Long-interested in ethnic mobilization and violence, Ms. Argo previously lived and worked in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Rwanda. She holds a Masters Degree in International Policy Studies (Conflict and Security Emphasis) from Stanford University, and a certificate in Peace Research from the University of Oslo.

Paul Cruickshank

Paul Cruickshank is currently a Fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law. He previously worked as an investigative journalist in London, reporting on al Qaeda and its European affiliates. He was part of the CNN reporting team that covered the July 7, 2005 attacks in London and has helped to design and produce CNN’s reporting on Islamic extremism in the UK. He also collaborated closely with Peter Bergen in interviewing dozens of acquaintances of Osama bin Laden for the recently published oral history The Osama bin Laden I Know and worked with CNN on a two-hour documentary “In the footsteps of bin Laden” to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Cruickshank has written about al Qaeda and European-based radical Islamic groups for a number of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Mother Jones and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He has provided on-air analysis to CNN, NBC, BBC, al Jazeera and Fox News on national security issues.

Cruickshank graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in history, and has a Masters degree with Honors in International Relations from the Paul. H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He has also worked in the European Parliament in Brussels and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.

Caron Gentry

Caron E. Gentry is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Abilene Christian University. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College. She received her PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. Caron’s work is published in Terrorism and Political Violence. She has co-authored a book with Laura Sjoberg that is slated for publication in the fall of 2007 with Zed Books. Caron has presented at the International Studies Conference multiple times as well as at the Southwestern Political Science Association Conference and at the UK Women's Studies Network Conference. Her work focuses on female terrorists but she is also interested in gender and security.

Assaf Moghadam

 

Assaf Moghadam is a Research Associate at the Jebsen Center and a Fellow in National Security at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. In his dissertation, which he is slated to defend in March 2007, Assaf examines the causes for the global spread of suicide terrorism, arguing that the most important factors for the ‘globalization of martyrdom’ are the rise of Al Qaeda and its guiding ideology, Salafi-Jihadism. Assaf serves on the editorial board of the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and has lectured widely on terrorism issues before various national and international audiences. He consults regularly on terrorism issues and is a senior adviser to the Global Justice Group, an organization representing the victims of terrorism. He has served as a consultant for the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard, and was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has also held research positions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Assaf is the author of a textbook, The Roots of Terrorism (New York: Chelsea House, 2006), and has published articles, op-eds, and book reviews in such outlets as Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, the Political Science Quarterly, the International Herald Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Assaf holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. in Political Science from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Swati Parashar

Swati Parashar is currently a PhD candidate at Lancaster University, UK. Prior to entering the doctoral program, Ms. Parashar was a Research Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore. Additionally she has worked as an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, where she coordinated the International Terrorism Watch Programme. Ms. Parashar was a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, US. She and has been published extensively on terrorism and security related issues in both print and online media, and has presented papers at national and international conferences. Her research interests include feminist international relations theory, women combatants in terrorist and political extremist groups, suicide bombers and terrorism, political violence, conflicts, and great powers' politics in South Asia.

 

Katharina Von Knop

Katharina Von Knop is currently an Adjunct Prof. at the George C. Marshall Center in the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies. Her current research includes the investigation of women inside al Qaeda. She holds a PhD on Counterterrorism, a MA in Political Science, and a BA in Communication Science, Sociology and Political Science. She has published four books on terrorism and counterterrorism as well as several scientific articles. Her article, “The Female Jihad” will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Her current research includes the investigation of women inside terrorist organizations, the effectiveness of current counterterrorism measures, radicalization of Muslims in Europe, and hypermedia seduction for terrorist recruiting and the countering of web-based Islamist narratives.

Deborah Scroggins

Deborah Scroggins is currently working on a book about women and the war on terror. Scroggins, a former newspaper and magazine correspondent, has been writing about Islam, terrorism and women for more than two decades. Her book, Emma’s War, (Pantheon, 2002) tells the story of Emma McCune, a British aid worker who married a warlord in southern Sudan during Sudan’s civil war. Soon to be made into a major motion picture, Emma’s War won the Ron Ridenhour Prize for Truth-telling in 2003. It has also been translated into German, Czech, Polish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian and other languages. As a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Scroggins on six national journalism awards. She now writes for Granta, Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine and many other publications.

Alisa Stack-O’Connor

Alisa Stack-O’Connor is the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, Support to Public Diplomacy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense.