Lydia Khalil is Program Director of the Transnational Challenges Program at the Lowy Institute. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute. She serves as an editorial board member of the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and is former convener of the Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism (AVERT) Research Network.

She has previously served as a senior policy adviser with various US government agencies such as the US Department of Defense, Boston Police Department, and New York Police Department. Her research interests include new forms of violent extremism, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism, the intersection of technology and social harms, threats to democracy, and democratic resilience.

Lydia is a frequent media commentator and has published widely in both popular and academic publications on her areas of expertise. She is the author of Rise of the Extreme Right: The New Global Extremism and the Threat to Democracy (Penguin, 2022).