Konstantin Ash (Ph.D. University of California – San Diego) is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, specializing in comparative politics and international relations. Specifically, he focuses on explaining participation in political conflict and violence, ranging from protests and riots to insurgencies and terrorism and using these findings to make group-level quantitative inferences, particularly with respect to conflict in the Middle East, North Africa and the broader Islamic World.

Bağcı Ulaş (Ph.D. University of Nottingham -UK) is a faculty member at the Center for Research in Computer Vision (CRCV), and the Assistant Professor in University of Central Florida (UCF). His research interests are image processing and statistical machine learning and their applications in biomedical and clinical imaging. Previously, Prof. Bagci was a staff scientist and the lab manager at the NIH’s Center for Infectious Disease Imaging (CIDI) Lab, department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences (RAD&IS).

David Dumke is the Director of the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd Program for Strategic Research and Studies at UCF. He writes regular columns for both Al Ahram Weekly and Saudi Gazette. He has worked on regional projects in a number of fields, including politics, business and academia. He also brings a background in entrepreneurship, having established numerous firms serving specific needs, whose clients, partners, and collaborators include governments, NGOs, business organizations and private-sector entities.

Tyler Fisher (Ph.D. Oxford University, UK) is an Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida. Upon completing a BA in English Literature and a second BA in Spanish at the University of Central Florida in 2003, Tyler Fisher became the first student from UCF to attain a Rhodes Scholarship. This enabled him to pursue graduate studies at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where his Master’s and doctoral research concerned metaliterary devices and theology in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spanish poetry. He was subsequently Queen Sofía Research Fellow and Lecturer in Spanish at Exeter College, Oxford (2008-2011).

Haidar Khezri (Ph.D. Damascus University, Syria) is a current resident senior fellow at KPSP. He served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies (CEUS) and Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Middle East (CSME) at Indiana University Bloomington (having taught previously at Tarbiat Modares University (Iran), Damascus University and al-Baath University (Syria), and Mardin Artuklu University (Turkey)). He specializes in the languages, literatures and cultures of the Kurdish, Persian and Arabic worlds, and Comparative Literature (especially Islamic/cate linguistic and literary genres).

Hakan Özoğlu (Ph.D. Ohio State University) has focused in his previous research on Kurdish Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. His book was titled Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State. The Turkish edition of the book came out in 2004. Özoğlu’s main aim in this project was to understand the process of identity formation and emergence of nationalism. His research interests include the power struggle in modern Turkish Republic after WWI and US involvement of the Middle East through Turkey after the Great War.

Güneş Murat Tezcür (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2005), the Jalal Talabani Chair of Kurdish Political Studies, is a social scientist studying political violence, identity, and movements. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in many different scholarly journals such as American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Perspectives and Journal of Peace Research. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. He conducts his research in Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish.

Tutku Ayhan is a doctoral student in the Security Studies at the Political Science Department at the University of Central Florida. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of genocidal violence on gender relations among the Yazidis.

Christopher Faulkner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at the University of Central Florida. He received his Master of Public Administration in 2010 and his Master of Arts in International Conflict Management and Resolution in 2013 from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research interests include civilian victimization in war, child soldiering, rebel recruitment and violence, terrorism, and counterterrorism effectiveness.

Doreen Horschig is a doctoral student in the Security Studies at the Political Science Department at the University of Central Florida. Her areas of research are Nuclear Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Prior to her PhD studies, she pursued a Master’s degree in International Relations at New York University as a DAAD Fellow (German Academic Exchange Service). Doreen’s dissertation work discusses Israeli public opinion on the use of nuclear weapons.

Stephanie Melendez is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida majoring in political science.

Maggie Morgan is the current Najmaldin Karim Fellow and undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida majoring in political science.

Melissa Zambri is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida majoring in political science.

Clayton Besaw (Ph.D. University of Central Florida) is a political psychologist and computational social scientist. He currently serves as a political events forecaster within OEF Research’s forecasting track. Clayton’s research background explores patterns in conflict and political violence, with a focus on extremist recruitment and behavior. The results of this work have been published in The Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Conflict Management and Peace Science.

Chris Edgerton graduated with a M.A. in Political Science from the University of Central Florida.

Helin Yildiz  graduated with a M.A. from the University of Bologna.

Kellan Ritter is a doctoral student at Penn State University.