Dr Rim Turkmani is a Senior Research Fellow at the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit and the Director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research is in the field of identity politics, legitimate governance, the transformation of the war economy into a peace economy, and the relationship between local and external drivers of the conflict. She led a project which compiled a database of instances of violence and peace-making, entitled ‘Crowd-sourcing Conflict and Peace “Events” in the Syrian conflict’. Dr Turkmami’s research results regularly inform policymaking.  She presented expert evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the UK parliament on aspects of the Syria crisis and the UK foreign policy on two occasions. Part of her chapter on the EU policy on Syria entitled ‘From hybrid peace to human security: Rethinking EU Strategy towards Conflict’ was adopted in the EU external strategy that Federica Mogherini published in 2016. She also regularly comments on Syria in Arabic and English media. Furthermore, she is a member of several advisory boards, such as the Women’s Advisory Board to the UN special envoy to Syria and airwars.org which monitors the International coalition strikes against ISIS.

She earned her PhD in Astrophysics from Chalmers University in Göteborg, Sweden. Previously, she was a Dorothy Hodgkin fellow of the Royal Society and a writer and curator on the history Islamic science and culture.