Jacob Shapiro is associate professor of politics and international affairs and co-directs the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. His active research projects study political violence, economic and political development in conflict zones, security policy, and urban conflict. He is author of “The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations.” His research has been published or is forthcoming in broad range of academic and policy journals including American Journal of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Political Economy, and World Politics as well as a number of edited volumes. Shapiro is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an associate editor of World Politics, a faculty fellow of the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS), a research fellow at the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP), an associate fellow of the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), and served in the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserve.

Michael A. Reynolds ’03 is the author of “Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires”(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), co-winner of the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize, a Financial Times book of the summer, and a Choice outstanding title. His research areas include Ottoman and modern Middle Eastern history, Russian and Eurasian history, the Caucasus, international relations, empire, nationalism, Turkish foreign policy, and US foreign policy. He holds a BA in Government and Slavic Languages and Literature from Harvard University, an MA in Political Science from Columbia University, and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University.

Costantino Pischedda is an Assistant Professor in International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami. His ongoing book project “Wars Within Wars: Understanding Inter-rebel Fighting” explains why and under what circumstances rebel groups pitted against a common enemy (the government) sometimes fight each other.

He did fieldwork in Iraq and Ethiopia, where he conducted over sixty interviews with former insurgent leaders. His research interests cover a broad range of topics at the intersection between International Relations, Security Studies and Comparative Politics: civil war dynamics (in particular civil war alliances), counterinsurgency, civilian victimization and terrorism, coercion theory, non-violent resistance, natural resources and conflict, and great powers’ military intervention.