Professor of Education and Sociology, American University

Cynthia Miller-Idriss holds a joint appointment as Professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education at American University, where she directs the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL), which is developing empirically-tested, scalable interventions to prevent and interrupt extremist radicalization. She is also Director of Strategy and Partnerships at the U.K.-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and serves on the international advisory board of the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) in Oslo, Norway. She has testified before the U.S. Congress and has briefed the UN Security Council’s Counter Terrorism Committee on white supremacist extremism and white nationalist terrorism, and frequently serves as an expert speaker on trends in white supremacist extremism to global academic and policy communities as well as to staff and representatives in U.S. and international government agencies and embassies. A globally-recognized expert on far right youth, Miller-Idriss is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books, including Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right, published by Princeton University Press in 2020 and The Extreme Gone Mainstream, published by Princeton University Press in 2018. In addition to her academic work, Miller-Idriss writes frequently for mainstream audiences and appears regularly in the media as an expert source and political commentator.