Dr. Marwa Maziad

Dr. Marwa Maziad is a visiting asst. professor of Israel Studies at the Gildenhorn Institute of University of Maryland, and a senior faculty fellow at American University’s Center for Israel Studies in Washington, D.C.  She is a former visiting scholar at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies and a former visiting assistant professor at Seattle University’s Department of Communication.

Dr. Maziad specializes in civil-military relations. An Egyptian-American with 20 years of experience teaching and lecturing internationally in higher-education institutions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, she is a published author in peer-reviewed academic and policy journals that cover international relations, global security, U.S. foreign and defense policies, and civil-military relations. 

In June 2020, Dr. Maziad contributed a chapter to the Pentagon’s “Global Futures Report: Alternative Futures of Geopolitical Competition in a post-COVID19 World,” that came out of the US Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability (AFWIC) and its Strategic Foresight and Futures Branch. Her chapter covered “The Future of Geopolitical Competition in the Middle East.”

Her current book project builds on her research at the University of Washington titled, “Middle East Militaries: In and Out of Politics and Economies, due to External Threat Perceptions—A Dynamic Regional Order Approach to Civil–military Relations. Comparative Cases of Turkey, Egypt, and Israel."

Dr. Maziad held academic faculty positions at Qatar University and Northwestern University in Qatar and published heavily on Gulf security affairs. She is the co-editor of The Arab Gulf States and the West: Perceptions and Realities — Opportunities and Perils and the author of one of its chapters “The Turkish Burden: The cost of the Turkey-Qatar alliance and hard power projection into Qatar’s foreign policy” (UCLA Center for Middle East Development, Routledge, 2019) 

As Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Fellow, she joined the Summer Workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS) in 2015 and has since been an active member in a number of academic and professional associations, including: 

• The European Research Group on Military and Society (ERGOMAS); 

• The Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUSAFS); 

• The International Sociological Association’s (ISA) Research Committee on Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution; 

• The Middle East Studies Association (MESA); and 

• The Association for Israel Studies (AIS). 

Having conducted fieldwork research across the Middle East — especially in Turkey, Egypt, Israel and the Arab States of the Gulf — Dr. Maziad has strong contacts with members of the armed forces, defense and security establishments, as well as the media community in these countries.

Her teaching, guest lecturing, fellowships, research or management positions include appointments and affiliations at a number of distinguished universities such as: University of Washington, Northwestern University, National Defense University, National Intelligence University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Tel Aviv University, Boğaziçi University and Şehir University in Turkey, the American University in Cairo, and Nasser Military Academy in Egypt. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she temporarily acted as Senior Advisor to the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies (ECSS) and advised on Egypt’s coronavirus policies, particularly the early and timely decision to establish a lockdown by mid-March. 

Dr. Maziad has been a regular sought-after political commentator for international media outlets including NPR, BBC Arabic, France24, and CNN International. She is fluent in Arabic, French, Turkish, and Hebrew. 

Education
BA, American University in Cairo; 
MA, University of Washington;
PhD, University of Washington  

Countries of Expertise
Turkey, Qatar; Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia; Israel; Tunisia; and Horn of Africa

Issues of Expertise
Civil-military relations; Defense; Regional Security; Strategy; US foreign and defense policies; Comparative Middle East media and politics. 

Languages
Arabic, French, Turkish, Hebrew