Aaron Y. Zelin

Richard Borow Fellow

Tel: 202-230-9550 (media inquiries only) 202-452-0650 (all other inquiries)
press@washingtoninstitute.org

Areas of Expertise

Biography

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow fellow at The Washington Institute, where his research focuses on how jihadist groups are adjusting to the new political environment in the era of Arab uprisings and Salafi politics in countries transitioning to democracy. He also serves as a consultant and lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's Practitioner Education Program.

Previously, Zelin was a research associate for Dr. Jytte Klausen's Western Jihadism Project at Brandeis University. There, he was responsible for collecting and analyzing a wide range of primary source materials from Western jihadists and networks, including documents in Arabic. He also created a detailed library of all jihadist plots against the West since the mid-1990s and the key individuals behind them.

Zelin is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and the Atlantic, and is the author of the New America Foundation's 2013 study The State of the Global Jihad Online. He independently maintains the widely cited website Jihadology.net and co-edits the blog al-Wasat.