Avi Spiegel is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of San Diego in California, and a Fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been both a Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the Ali Pachachi Scholar of the Modern Middle East at Oxford University. Spiegel trained in religious studies at Harvard and in Middle East politics at Oxford, where he earned his doctorate from St. Antony’s College. Born and raised in Southern California, Avi holds a BA from Georgetown and a JD from NYU. A former Fulbright Scholar and Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, he has traveled and lectured extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa. His commentary has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Baltimore Sun, The American Interest, Huffington Post, and NPR. He has also served as a Middle East analyst for Al Jazeera English. He is completing a book on the next generation of political Islam, based on his fieldwork among young political activists in the Arab world.

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