Barak Mendelsohn is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Haverford College. He holds a doctoral degree in Government from Cornell University, MA in Security Studies from Tel Aviv University, and BA in Middle East Studies from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Mendelsohn specializes in radical Islamist organizations, with an emphasis on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. He is the author of three books: Combating Jihadism: American Hegemony and Interstate Cooperation in the War on Terrorism (University of Chicago Press, 2009), The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda and Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2016), and Jihadism Constrained: The Limits of Transnational Jihadism and What It Means for Counterterrorism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Mendelsohn is also the author of numerous articles in academic journals and various media outlets.