Our Staff & Volunteers

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism and served for over 2 decades as Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and also served as an Affiliate in the Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University. 

She has interviewed over 800 terrorists, violent extremists, their family members and supporters around the world, including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Over the past five years, she has conducted in-depth psychological interviews with 273 ISIS defectors, returnees and prisoners, as well as 16 al Shabaab cadres (as well as family members and ideologues,) studying their trajectories into and out of terrorism, and their experiences inside ISIS and al Shabaab. 

Speckhard developed the ICSVE Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project from these interviews, which includes over 250 short counter narrative videos that mimic ISIS recruitment videos but contain actual terrorists strongly denouncing ISIS as un-Islamic, corrupt and brutal. These videos have been utilized in over 200 Facebook and Instagram campaigns globally. Beginning in 2020, she launched the ICSVE Escape Hate Counter Narrative Project, interviewing dozens of white supremacists and members of hate groups, developing counternarratives from their interviews, and creating anti-recruitment videos. She has also conducted rare interviews with five Antifa activists (Antifa protestors rarely grant interviews.) 

Dr. Speckhard is also an expert in rehabilitation and repatriation of terrorists and their families. In 2007, she designed the psychological and Islamic aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to 20,000+ detainees and 800 juveniles. This work led to consulting with foreign governments on issues of terrorist prevention, interventions and repatriation; and the rehabilitation and reintegration of ISIS foreign fighters, wives and children. She has worked with NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), UN Women, United Nations Countering Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UNCTED), United Nations Office of Drug and Crime (UNODC), the EU Commission and EU Parliament, and to the U.S. Senate & House, Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Health & Human Services, and the FBI.

Today Dr. Speckhard actively trains key stakeholders in law enforcement, intelligence, elite hostage negotiation teams, educators, and other professionals in countering violent extremism, locally and internationally. Her focus is on the psychology of terrorism, the effective use of counter-narrative messaging materials produced by ICSVE, as well as studying the use of children as violent actors by groups such as ISIS. Her consultations and trainings include U.S., Canadian, German, British, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, Belgian, Danish, Iraqi, Syrian, Jordanian and Thai national police and security officials, among others. 

Dr. Speckhard is the author of five books: Homegrown Hate, Talking to Terrorists, Bride of ISIS, Undercover Jihadi, and ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate. She has appeared on CNN, BBC, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CTV, CBC, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, Daily Beast and more. She regularly writes a column for Homeland Security Today. Her research has been published in Global Security: Health, Science and Policy, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, Journal of African Security, Journal of Strategic Security, the Journal of Human Security, Bidhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies, Journal for Deradicalization, Perspectives on Terrorism and the International Studies Journal.  Her academic publications are found at https://georgetown.academia.edu/AnneSpeckhard and www.icsve.org. 

ICSVE’s Breaking the ISIS Brand and Escape Hate Counternarrative videos and training seminars can be watched on ICSVE’s YouTube channel.

ICSVE’s research has been funded by the EU Commission; U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice; UN Women; and the Embassy of Qatar. 

Follow @AnneSpeckhard

Sophia Abi-Najm is a Research Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), where she contributes to the development and delivery of training programs on Police Responses to Terrorism and Violent Extremism. She currently supports ICSVE’s Department of Justice-funded Understanding and Responding to Hate Crimes initiative and works on the Accelerating Repatriations of Youth and ISIS-Related Family Members from Camps al Hol and al Roj project. She also assists with trainings and conference presentations around the world. 

Previously, Sophia supported the Department of Defense’s Addressing Extremism in the U.S. Military project and the Department of Homeland Security's Police Responses to Terrorism and Violent Extremism trainings. Sophia also assisted with research on the 2021 Capitol Hill riots, as well as the QAnon and Escape Hate counter-narrative projects. 

Sophia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (2021), with minors in Forensic and Investigative Sciences and Criminology. Her academic focus includes the sociology of violent crime and deviance, as well as studies in crime scene investigation, the culture of illicit drugs, and the biological bases of behavior.

Before joining ICSVE, Sophia worked in California, where she supported counseling programs, rapid rehousing initiatives, and services for veterans. In collaboration with Dr. Anne Speckhard, Sophia co-authored a publication in Homeland Security Today titled “Developing and Testing Virtual Training for Police Prevention of Extremist Infiltration in Communities.”

Mona Thakkar, is a Research Fellow at ICSVE exploring the dominant narratives and propaganda setting strategies of jihadist groups of ISIS, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and others through social media, as well as analyzing the impact of the ISIS resurgence and ideological clashes of militant jihadist groups on the geopolitics of the Idlib theatre, and other security-related developments in Iraq and Syria. Mona holds a Bachelor's degree in Mass Media with specialization in Journalism.  Currently, she is pursuing her Master's in International Relations from Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India. She has previously worked as a West Asian foreign policy research intern at the Centre for Public Policy Research, India,  and as a fixer/translator for German publications like  Swiss Radio, Fernsehen and Tages Zeitung. Mona is fluent in English, German, Hindi and Arabic.

Kathryn Duffy is serving as a Research Fellow for ICSVE working with our Department of Justice Hate Crimes grant, looking into campus protests relating to the Israeli/Hamas conflict and studying failures to control violence as well as winning strategies to prevent hate crimes and violence. Kathryn received both her Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Global Affairs from Rutgers University, where she concentrated on human security and global policy. Her research areas include violent extremism, radicalization/deradicalization with a focus on the U.S. and European regions, and the nexus between terrorism and crime. Kathryn is a recipient of several Rutgers Doctoral Fellowships and is a co-author of multiple peer-reviewed articles on security and resilience/building of vulnerable populations. She currently resides in Germany, speaks fluent German and has had formal educational training in French, Italian and Arabic. 

Molly Ellenberg is a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism [ICSVE]. Molly is a doctoral student in social psychology at the University of Maryland. She holds an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from The George Washington University and a B.S. in Psychology with a Specialization in Clinical Psychology from UC San Diego. Her research focuses on radicalization to and deradicalization from militant jihadist and white supremacist violent extremism, the quest for significance, and intolerance of uncertainty. Molly has presented original research at NATO Advanced Research Workshops and Advanced Training Courses, the International Summit on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma, the GCTC International Counter Terrorism Conference, UC San Diego Research Conferences, and for security professionals in the European Union. She is also an inaugural member of the UNAOC’s first youth consultation for preventing violent extremism through sport. Her research has been cited over 100 times and has been published in Psychological Inquiry, Global Security: Health, Science and Policy, AJOB Neuroscience, Frontiers in Psychology, Motivation and Emotion, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, Women & Criminal Justice, the Journal of Strategic Security, the Journal of Human Security, Bidhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies, and the International Studies Journal. Her previous research experiences include positions at Stanford University, UC San Diego, and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.

Wilson W. Warren is working at ICSVE as a  Research Fellow, researching issues of white supremacism, QAnon, inceldom and militant jihadism. Wilson is new to this field, having worked in the entertainment industry from 2006 to 2018. In this arena, he worked as an executive assistant, label executive, concert producer and promoter, recruiter (A&R), and manager of writers, producers, and top artists. The entertainers he worked with include Three 6 Mafia, T.I., G-Eazy, Outkast, Dallas Austin, Tricky Stewart, Southside, Usher, Lil Baby, Waka, Akon, Polow Da Don, Leona Lewis, Jake and Logan Paul, and Justin Bieber. In the technology domain, Wilson consulted for the social media platform PHEED, which sold to Mobli, facilitated partnerships between top entertainers and the App — Music Messenger,which was acquired by Yahoo, and co-founded an event App called YOPIMA,where he brought on T.I. as the investor/partner — this also resulted in a co-patent position. Wilson also served as a Social Media Consultant for a successful U.S. Senate campaign. He is now a partner at a 501(c)3, called Soldier For Wildlife, where he actively assists with intelligence designed to combat poaching and engage the local community on a 309 square mile reserve in Zambia. Wilson is currently working towards a degree in International Relations with a minor in Arabic and hopes to also pursue graduate studies. He also has a volunteer position as a Research Fellow at the Alive and Well Foundation, headquartered in Atlanta, GA. 

TM Garret Schmid (born Achim Schmid) and publicly known as TM Garret is an Extremism Researcher and Analyst at ICSVE and is available for public speaking events. He is a German-American Public Speaker, Human Rights Activist, Consultant, Author, Extremism Researcher, Interfaith Activist and founder of C.H.A.N.G.E, a non-profit organization which engages in anti-racism and anti-violence campaigns, food drives, inter-faith work as well as an EXIT program which helps individuals leave extremist groups and ERASING THE HATE, a nationwide tattoo campaign and movement that covers up racist and hate tattoos for free. He is also the organizer of the Memphis Peace Conference in 2018 and founder of “Share a Meal Pledge.” Before he started engaging in Civil Rights work, TM Garret was a White Supremacist in leading roles in Europe and the USA. He left this lifestyle and ideology for good in 2003. Garret works closely with the Jewish as well as the Black Community. He is a campus speaker against antisemitism for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a member of the NAACP. He is also a US ambassador for EXIT Germany and an honorary board member of “We Are Many-United Against Hate.” TM Garret has lectured at Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, Boston Law School, Vanderbilt, Hotchkiss, Pomona and many other schools and universities. In 2019 he spoke at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Center as well as the City Hall in New York City. He was featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, VICE and VOX as well as the New York Magazine, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post and many other international major TV stations and outlets.

For more information, please visit www.tmgarret.com or his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TM_Garret.

Maha Ghazi is a Moroccan/ Egyptian Ph.D candidate in University Mohamed V- Rabat (Morocco) in political and international studies. Her dissertation focuses on De-radicalization programs in prisons, the rehabilitation and the reintegration of ex jihadist inmates.

Before that, Maha held a master’s degree with honor from the same University. Her thesis considered the first academic thesis in Moroccan universities that analysis the national strategies countering violent extremism inside prisons with highlighting “Musalaha” program, which is the Deradicalization program that has been launched in Morocco in 2017. 

Maha’s work is based on field research technics, by having the legal access to enter the super max prisons, and interviewing ex jihadists and experts.  She has published many researches/ articles before, and participated in many international conferences and scientific workshops. Also, she has collaborated previously with many think tanks and organizations, as The Moroccan Observatory on Extremism and Violence (OMEV), and The Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis (MIPA) by contributing as a qualitative researcher in “Trust Index” report which caught the attention of the national media and the public opinion before.

Beside her academic interests in De-radicalization, prisons and extremism issues, she is interested as well in security reforms, peace issues and soft power.

Maha Speaks Arabic (native: Classical, Moroccan, Egyptian and other dialects), English and French.

Gabriel Sjöblom-Fodor is a researcher who specializes in the study of religious community work in the countering of violent extremism and extremist narratives, and how this work impacts national security. His focus is on deradicalization and prevention of violence using theological and psychological counseling, as well as the specific politico-religious and social roots of modern violent extremism. He has a background in journalism and in politics and has authored several reports and articles on these research topics. In 2015 he embarked on a research project that aimed to investigate how Muslim religious communities countered extremist narratives and recruitment to violent extremism. The focus lay in examining theological and counseling debates and methods, where the extremist narrative is deconstructed, have been used by religious actors, and continue to be used, in the Nordic context. This was done through interviewing religious leaders and actors who witnessed close-up the call to violent extremism during the rise and peak of the ISIS “Caliphate” and were able to witness first-hand these processes and engage with radicalized individuals, recruiters and FTFs. Gabriel has also consulted and assisted in several research projects on the topics of religious extremism, Salafism, radicalization and security strategies. He has also written several news articles on the topics as well as appeared in several publications. At ICSVE, Gabriel is working on the issues of EU repatriations, research into violent extremism and prevention and interventions to disrupt terrorist recruitment and delegitimize terrorist groups.

Hasan Suzen PhD candidate at University of Antwerpen, is currently studying on great power politics, political warfare, hybrid warfare, counter terrorism and extremism. He received two Master’s degrees from the University of Oklahoma and the US Command and General Staff College in International Affairs and Security Studies.

Prior to joining Beyond the Horizon ISSG, and ICSVE EU as a research fellow, he obtained experience in counterterrorism in both operational and planning levels and worked as Strategic Foresight and Transformation Supervisor at Turkish General Staff HQ and Senior Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Analyst in Comprehensive Crisis and Operation Management Centre at NATO.

He is a regular writer at Political Insights and Beyond the Horizon, and gave lectures on defence reform, military transformation, and hybrid warfare.

His expertise areas are:

• Political warfare, information warfare, cyber defense
• Hybrid warfare
• Counter terrorism and extremism
• Defense planning
• Military transformation
• Security Sector Reform
• Defense Institution Building
• Crisis response and operation management

  Noellynn Slaughter is a Research Fellow at ICSVE. She holds a master’s degree in Terrorism Studies from King’s College London, and a master’s degree in International Policy Studies from Middlebury Institute of International Studies. She is a military intelligence veteran, having served five years in the US Air Force as a Russian Cryptologic Linguist. She has studied Russian, Modern Standard Arabic, French, and Lebanese Arabic. 

Noellynn is a US Department of Defense contractor working in Security Cooperation at present, and has previously presented research on female terrorists to Counterterrorism experts from around the world. She has a background in Russian, Middle Eastern, Central, and South Asian studies, International Policy, Security, and Defense. 

Noellynn is currently assisting in research on US white supremacist organizations and also researching Islamic State Khorasan in Afghanistan and its relationship with ISIS, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Pakistan, US and Coalition forces.