Biography
Born in Narvik, Norway in 1977, Thomas Hegghammer was educated in Oriental Studies and Modern Middle East Studies at Oxford University and obtained his doctorate in political science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris in 2007 with a thesis entitled "Violent Islamism in Saudi Arabia, 1979-2006: The Power and Perils of Pan-Islamic Nationalism".
Thomas Hegghammer is the 2012-2013 Zuckerman fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He is currently on leave from his position as senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in Oslo, where he has also served as director of terrorism research. He has previously been a non-resident fellow at New York University (2010-2011), member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2009-2010), fellow and associate at Harvard Kennedy School (2008-2010), postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University (2007-2008) and visiting fellow at King's College London (2005-2006).
Thomas Hegghammer has published widely on various aspects of Islamist militancy. He wrote Jihad in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge 2010) and co-authored the Meccan Rebellion (Amal 2011) and Al-Qaida dans le texte (Presses Universitaires de France, 2005). His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, International Security, Journal of Peace Research, International Affairs, International Journal of Middle East Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, The Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He has also written for the International Crisis Group and Oxford Analytica. He previously co-edited Jihadica, a blog that covers developments on jihadist websites.
Mr. Hegghammer regularly advises the US, UK and Norwegian governments on matters relating to Islamism and terrorism. He testified in parliamentary hearings on anti-terrorism legislation in Canada (2005 and 2010) and Denmark (2006). He has served as an expert witness in several terrorism trials in the United Kingdom.
High-resolution pictures available below. Please credit "Christian Vinculado Tandberg/FFI".
