Rashad Ali is a Senior Fellow at ISD. Rashad is a counter terrorism practitioner who works on deradicalisation initiatives alongside Prisons, Probation Services, Police and community groups. He was formerly a national leadership member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the revolutionary Islamist organisation and has been actively involved in undermining its extreme ideology and perversion of Muslim faith since his departure. As a researcher he has given testimony and contributed submissions to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Radicalisation, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Intelligence and has briefed the London Mayor's office on Counter Terrorism and has been consulted by think tanks and governments in Germany, Denmark, the EU and the US. He is an external lecturer for Derby University’s Master Class courses on Radicalisation and Counter Terrorism. He has written for The Observer, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Times, Dissent Magazine, Birlingske in Denmark, Conservative Home, and given commentary for Newsnight, BBC News. He is the author of Islam, Shariah and the Far Right published by Demoqratiya journal, A Guide to Refuting Jihadism published by HJS and EFD, and the author of the ISD report Blasphemy, Charlie Hebdo, and the Freedom of Belief and Expression. He is classically trained in Islamic theology and jurisprudence and Modern studies in Islam. He studied at al-Azhar University, Cairo, and the Markfield Institute.

Zahed Amanullah is a Resident Senior Fellow at ISD, leading on ISD’s civil society engagement, communications, and partnerships, coordinating the public and private sectors with activists, frontline workers, and relevant civil society networks. He has worked closely with Google.org to support British and European civil society organisations through the Innovation Fund, the Shared Endeavour Fund, and the Google Impact Challenge on Safety. He has given testimony to the UK and European parliaments and has been featured at the BBC, NPR, Channel 4, Sky News, the Guardian, CNN International, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Newsweek, among others. He has co-authored the ISD reports The Impact of Counternarratives, Between Two Extremes: Responding to Islamist and tribalist messaging online in Kenya during the 2017 elections, and The Innovation Fund to Counter Hate and Extremism in the UK. He holds a BS from the University of California, Berkeley and a Diploma in Management from the University of Bath.

Christian Schwieter is a Fellow at ISD and a PhD candidate at the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University, where he investigates the impact of European platform governance efforts on far-right activity on social media. Between 2020-2023, he led ISD Germany’s research on the migration of right-wing extremist actors to Telegram and other smaller platforms in response to increased content moderation on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. At ISD, he also co-led the pilot phase of the Digital Policy Lab, a new intergovernmental working group focused on charting the online policy path forward to prevent and counter disinformation, hate speech and extremism. In his role, he has advised the German Ministry of Justice, the German Foreign Office and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, among others. Before ISD, Christian worked as a researcher for the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute and was Specialist Adviser on Disinformation Matters for the DCMS Select Committee at the UK House of Commons. He holds an MSc (Dist) in Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford and a BA (Hons) in World Politics from Leiden University.

Will Baldet MBE is a Fellow at ISD. He also serves as a Regional CVE Coordinator in the UK and a Senior Advisor to the UK Government’s ‘Prevent’ strategy. He has been a practitioner in Countering Violent Extremism since 2008, working in both policing and policy. In 2020 he received an MBE for his counter terrorism work as a Prevent Coordinator protecting communities in the UK. It was in this role that he has developed and managed projects to empower civil society responses to radicalisation with a particular focus on youth, women and education. Will has been a consultant for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and is a member of the EU-funded Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Europe and has supported Governments with the development of their national CVE programmes, including the Netherlands, Malta and Kazakhstan. He appears regularly in the media, including BBC News, Channel 4 News, BBC Newsnight and Sky News and writes for several online media outlets. He is also a Policy & Practitioner Fellow at the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).

Jonathan is a Senior Policy Fellow at ISD. Until 2020, he was ISD’s Deputy Director with responsibility for Research, Policy and Cities work, overseeing ISD’s policy work and networks including the Policy Planners’ Network and the Strong Cities Network, as well as overseeing ISD’s work on education policy and programming. At ISD, Jonathan authored

• Mapping hate in France: A panoramic view of online discourse (2020),
• Smearing Sweden: International Influence Campaigns in the 2018 Swedish Election (2018),
• Counter-Conversations: A model for direct engagement with individuals showing signs of radicalisation online (2018),
• The Impact of Counter-Narratives (2016),
• Lone Actor Terrorism: Policy Paper 3 – Motivations, Political Engagement and Online Activity (2016),
• and edited An Online Environmental Scan of Right-wing Extremism in Canada (2020).

Prior to joining ISD, Jonathan was Head of Programme at the UK cross-party think tank Demos, where he published over forty research reports on topics including violent extremism both Islamist (The Edge of Violence, 2010) and Far-Right (The New Face of Digital Populism, 2011). Jonathan has also written extensively on education (The Forgotten Half, 2011), social and emotional learning (Character Nation, 2015), youth social action and attitudes towards politics (Tune In, Turn Out, 2014), digital politics and marketing (Like, Share, Vote, 2014), trust in government (Trust in Practice, 2010) and religion and integration (Rising to the Top, 2015), among other topics. Jonathan holds a Master’s degree (with distinction) from the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Philosophy from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Iris Boyer is a Senior Advisor at ISD and spearheads ISD’s development in France. She also works as a Senior Policy Consultant for Reset and is an honorary member of different expert groups on information manipulations and online threats set up by the French regulatory body. She has recently set up the first coalition of academics observing cyberthreats to electoral integrity in France. Previously she spent five years overseeing ISD’s flagship communications, education and technology programming, as well as mobilising and training international networks of civil society organizations against online hate and radicalisation, and designing digital citizenship modules against disinformation.  Iris has also worked as a Senior Policy Manager for the Web Foundation where she led the global roll out strategy of the Contract for the Web, focusing on Platforms and Government accountability. Before that, Iris spent time working at Facebook and Google on European and Global programming supporting the mobilisation of civil society against online harms. She started her career working for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held several positions covering Russian speaking countries. Her background is in political science and public policy.

Julia Ebner is a Senior Resident Research Fellow at ISD, specialising in far-right extremism, reciprocal radicalisation, conspiracy myths and terrorism prevention. Julia regularly advises parliamentary working groups, intelligence agencies and tech firms, and delivers guest lectures at universities. She acted as a consultant on counter-terrorism for the United Nations. To bring her research findings to wider audiences, Julia has written for newspapers such as the Guardian, Washington Post and Süddeutsche and has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4, CNN, ZDF, ARD, France24 and others. She is an award-winning and bestselling author of several books. Her first book The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism won the Bruno Kreisky Award for the 2018 Political Book of the Year. Her second book Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists was an international bestseller and has been translated into seven languages. It won the award ‘Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2020’ (Science Book of the Year 2020), as well as the Dr Caspar Einem prize and was long listed for the Gold Dagger Award. Her latest book Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over has just been released. In 2023, Julia completed her ESRC-sponsored DPhil in Anthropology at Oxford University (St John's college), where she remains a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. Based on her academic research, Julia has written many peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapter contributions and her DPhil thesis will be published as a book with Columbia University Press. She holds an MSc (Dist) in International History from London School of Economics and an MSc (Dist) in International Relations from Peking University. Julia completed her undergraduate studies with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and a BSc in International Business.​ Julia is fluent in English, German and French and has intermediate Spanish and Mandarin skills.  Julia co-authored a range of ISD reports, including The Online Ecosystem of the German Far-Right, The Great Replacement: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism, Mainstreaming Mussolini – How the Extreme Right Attempted to ‘Make Italy Great Again’ in the 2018 Italian Election, The Fringe Insurgency – Connectivity, Convergence and Mainstreaming of the Extreme Right, and Hate at the Push of a Button.

Dilwar Hussain is a Fellow at ISD, and an independent consultant working on social policy, Muslim identity and Islamic reform in the modern world. He is founding Chair of New Horizons in British Islam, a charity that works on Muslim identity, integration and reform; Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, University of Coventry; and Lecturer at the University of Leicester. Dilwar also teaches courses on Islam in contemporary society, and is the author of several publications in this field. He has previously worked in academic research, political consultancy, and training for more than 15 years, delivering contracts for private sector groups as well as various governmental departments.

Alex Krasodomski-Jones is a Fellow at ISD and a researcher at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM). His main research interest is political extremism and its reportage on social media. He also manages CASM’s analytics capability, including data collection, analytics, and visualisation. Alex is a frequent media commentator, and writes regularly for the Huffington Post and Spectator. Before joining CASM, Alex worked at Accenture Digital in visual analytics.

Hadiya Masieh is an expert in the area of community cohesion, interfaith relations, counter extremism, and women’s involvement in extremism. She has been a counter extremism consultant for various Governments and NGOs in the US, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Denmark, and Spain. She has also worked with non-profit and commercial organisations including Google Jigsaw. She was appointed to the UK government’s “National Muslim Women’s Advisory Group” which advised senior government officials on theological development, community cohesion, and empowering women from ethnic minorities. Hadiya was one of the authors of the report “Radicalisation and violent extremism-focus on women: How women become radicalised and how to empower them to prevent Radicalisation”, which was produced the European Parliament committee on Women’s Rights and Gender equality. Hadiya was an ambassador for Women Without Borders promoting counter extremism narratives and facilitating discussions within conflict areas. She was appointed to the board of the internationally renowned and award winning peacekeeping organisation The Bereaved Families Forum based in Palestine and Israel, promoting their message of peace within conservative Jewish and Islamic Institutions in the UK. Hadiya was one of the first women to work on the UK channel programme where she has worked closely with scores of women affected by radical and extremist views. She has been interviewed by Radio 4, BBC World Service, BBC Asian Network, CNN, The Guardian, and Vogue Magazine. Hadiya has worked with ISD as a consultant since 2013 on the One to One programme.

Carl Miller is a Senior Fellow at ISD. He is the founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos (2011) and CASM Technology (2014), and has spent the last decade researching social media intelligence (SOCMINT), extremism, online electoral interference, radicalisation, digital politics, conspiracy theories, cyber-crime and Internet governance. He is the author of The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab (Penguin Random House), and the presenter of Power Trip: The Age of AI (Intelligence Squared). Carl is also a Visiting Fellow at the Department of War Studies (King’s College London), an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, a Senior Research Fellow at RAND Europe, a member of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, a member of the advisory board of the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, and a member of the Challenging Pseudoscience group at the Royal Institution. Additionally, he is a member of RUSI’s States Threats Task Force, the High Level Taskforce on AI and Society at Chatham House and the Expert Group of the European Digital Media Observatory. Carl has written for The Economist, The Sunday Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Literary Review, Wired, New Scientist, The Telegraph, the Atlantic and the Guardian.

Zeenat Rahman is a Fellow at ISD, as well as an expert on global youth issues, interfaith, and diversity engagement. She is also a former diplomat. Her experience ranges from national security, foreign policy, and leadership development to work in government, the private sector, and NGOs. Zeenat was recently a Presidential Political Appointee, serving as a Special Advisor to Secretaries Clinton and Kerry on global youth issues at the U.S. Department of State. While in this field, she encouraged foreign governments to respond to youth issues through policy change, and created opportunities for young people to pursue their economic and civic goals.

Dr. Erin Saltman is the Director of Programming at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She was formerly Facebook’s Head of Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations Policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa; working with multi-sector stakeholders and building out CVE programs for Facebook in partnership with international NGOs. Dr Saltman’s background and expertise includes both far-right and Islamist extremist processes of radicalization within a range of regional and socio-political contexts. Her research and publications have focused on the evolving nature of online extremism and terrorism, gender dynamics within violent extremist organizations and youth radicalization. Previous roles include Senior Research and Programs positions at Quilliam Foundation and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, where she remains a Research Fellow. She is the co-author of Youth Innovation Labs: A Model for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, ‘Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’ Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon, and Guidance for International Youth Engagement in PVE and CVE. Dr. Saltman is a graduate of Columbia University (BA) and University College London (MA and PhD).

Michel Seibriger is a Fellow at ISD, spending the first of two placements of his Mercator Fellowship in our organisation. His research focuses on far-right extremism, conspiracy theories and disinformation in Germany and Europe. During his fellowship, Michel aims to outline the threat emanating from the transnational far right, and to find innovative measures to prevent and counter violent far-right extremism both on- and offline.

Michel has several years of professional experience working for the European Commission, the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, POLITICO and Statista. He holds an MA in International Peace & Security from King’s College London and a BA in International Relations & International Organisation from the University of Groningen.

Heather is currently a Senior Fellow for the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) where she is serving in both an advisory and research capacity focused on U.S. efforts to build social cohesion and community resilience to counter violent extremism in all its forms. Prior to joining ISD, Heather served as the Senior Community Engagement Coordinator for Columbus, Ohio under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Community Partnerships. Previously, Heather spent a decade working for the U.S. Department of State focused on counterterrorism, countering violent extremism, and promoting Muslim civil society engagement across the globe. Heather has also worked in the philanthropic sector with Innovation Fund America and in the private sector with the Gap Foundation and the Cisco Entrepreneurship Institute. She holds a bachelor's degree in English and history from The Ohio State University, a master's in international security from George Washington University and a master's in business administration from New York University.