Keynote Speaker

(Photographer: Elliott O’Donovan)

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS

Professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education, at the American University in Washington, DC

Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a Professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education at the American University in Washington, DC, where she is also the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). She is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and recently served as the inaugural creative lead for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s residency program on social cohesion in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Miller-Idriss regularly testifies before the U.S. Congress and briefs policy, security, education and intelligence agencies in the U.S., the United Nations, and other countries on trends in domestic violent extremism and strategies for prevention and disengagement. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books, including Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, forthcoming in September 2025 from Princeton University Press and Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton University Press, 2022), and is currently at work on a new co-authored book (with Pasha Dashtgard) on evidence-based prevention of hate-fuelled violence. Dr. Miller-Idriss writes frequently for mainstream audiences, as an opinion columnist for MSNBC and in other recent by-lines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and more.