Marc Lynch is professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He served from 2009-2015 as director of the Institute for Middle East Studies. He is the founder and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a non-resident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a contributing editor at the Monkey Cage blog for the Washington Post. He is the co-director of the Blogs and Bullets project at the United States Institute of Peace. In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

Lynch publishes frequently on the politics of the Middle East. His new book, The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East, was published by PublicAffairs in 2016. His recent books include The Arab Uprisings Explained (Columbia University Press) and The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East (PublicAffairs), which the Economist called “the most illuminating and, for policymakers, the most challenging” book yet written on the topic. His other books include Voices of the New Arab Public: Al-Jazeera, Iraq, and Middle East Politics Today (2006), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book, and State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan’s Identity (1999).

Lynch graduated from Duke University (BA), and received his MA and PhD in Government from Cornell University. He taught at Williams College from 1997-2007, and joined the faculty of The George Washington University in 2007.

Lynch blogged as Abu Aardvark for seven years before joining Foreign Policy as a blogger and columnist, and from 2009-2014 edited the Digital National Magazine Awards finalist The Middle East Channel.

Moderated by Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Professor, School of International and Public Affairs