Konstantin Ash (Ph.D. University of California – San Diego) is an assistant professor at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, 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.

Ulaş Bağcı (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 Office of Global Perspectives 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 an Assistant Professor at the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at the University of Central Florida. Prior to UCF, Khezri was an Assistant Professor at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey (2011-2014), and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University – Bloomington (2014-2018). Through the academic year 2018 – 2019, Khezri was a Visiting Faculty Member and Resident Senior Fellow at UCF’s KPSP. He is currently co-editing The Walter De Gruyter Companion to Kurdish Literature (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter Press 2021).

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 and a Professor at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs. He 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 candidate in the Security Studies Program at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Prior to UCF, she pursued graduate degrees at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Boğaziçi University. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of genocidal violence on gender relations among the Yazidis.

Jenna Dovydaitis, an undergraduate student majoring in political science, was the Najmaldin Karim Fellow in spring 2019. She writes an honors thesis on the enduring legacy of chemical weapons attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Doreen Horschig is a doctoral candidate in Security Studies at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs 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.

Joshua E. Lambert is a doctoral candidate in Security Studies at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. His areas of research are environmental security, civil-military relation, political psychology, and computational social science Prior to his PhD studies, he pursued a Master’s degree at the University of New Orleans .

Maggie Morgan, an undergraduate student majoring in political science, was the Najmaldin Karim Fellow in spring 2018. She writes an honors thesis on the implications of women’s participation in military forces on gender inequality in Kurdish societies.

Alexi Sadaka, an undergraduate student majoring in political science and economics, was the Najmaldin Karim Fellow in spring 2020. He wrote a paper on the US military aid.

Öner Yiğit is a doctoral student in Security Studies at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida.

Clayton Besaw (Ph.D. University of Central Florida, 2018) 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.

Christopher M. Faulkner (Ph.D. University of Central Florida, 2019) is a scholar of international relations, violent conflict, and human rights. His publications appeared in various journals such as Civil Wars, Democratization, European Journal of International Relations, and Third World Quarterly. He wrote his dissertation on child soldiering and was a Minerva-United States Peace Institute Scholar during the 2018-9 academic year. He will start as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Centre College in fall 2019.

Chris Edgerton graduated with a M.A. in Political Science from the University of Central Florida in 2017. He is currently pursuing a J.D. degree at University of Miami School of Law .

Helin Yildiz  graduated with a M.A. from the University of Bologna. She was a visiting student at KPSP during the 2017-8 academic year.

Stephanie Melendez graduated from the University of Central Florida with a major in political science in 2018. She is attending the NYU Steinhardt’s Teacher Residency Program.

Kellan Ritter is currently a doctoral student at Penn State University. He was the inaugural Najmaldin Karim Fellow in spring 2017. He graduate from UCF in 2018.

Melissa Zambri graduated from the University of Central Florida with a major in political science in 2019.