Experience & Activities

Abbas Barzegar, Ph.D.  serves as the Director of the Horizon Forum where he stewards its collaborative and stakeholder-centered research programming. He is a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations and maintains research and teaching affiliations with Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Emory University’s Masters in Development Program, and George Mason’s Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. He has years of applied research experience covering transnational Muslim civil society at the intersection of global Islamic revival and geopolitical conflict.

Recent projects he has led include the European Union funded “Bridging Transatlantic Voices” initiative at the British Council USA, the digital archive, “After Malcolm” at George Mason, and the Hijacked by Hate study on US philanthropy and anti-Muslim special interest groups. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, he is the co-author of Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (Stanford). His work has been supported by The European Union, The British Council, The US Institute of Peace (USIP), the Mellon Foundation, The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). His commentary and analysis can be found in a variety of print and broadcast media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, The Hill, The Huffington Post, and Aljazeera.