Director of the Security Research Center and General Supervisor of National Security and Counter-Terrorism Programs
Member of the University’s Academic Council. A researcher and geopolitical expert with over 23 years of experience in consulting and research in politics and international relations. He recently joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC as a non-resident research fellow. Dr. Al-Ghannam was awarded a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program and joined the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey as a research fellow, where he earned an MA in International Policy Studies and a PhD from the University of Exeter in Political Science and International Relations. He worked as a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, a senior advisor at the Gulf Research Center (GRC) in Cambridge and the director of the center’s International Studies Program. He has contributed to numerous strategic projects and geopolitical issues as an expert and special advisor to global executives and on high-level steering and coordination committees. Dr. Al-Ghannam is a keynote speaker at numerous international conferences and an analyst for major global think tanks and media outlets on topics of politics, international relations and national security related to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and internationally. He also worked with major research centers in the Middle East on geopolitical and security issues related to ballistic missiles, social movements in the region, and crisis management, which included fieldwork in conflict zones. His research contributions included co-authoring a number of book chapters, studies, and research projects as a lead and co-author, on the political dynamics of the GCC and the Arab world, nuclear weapons, political economy, terrorism, and extremism. He also participated in preparing studies on renewing aspects of the US-Saudi strategic partnership and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Dr. Al-Ghannam presented many important papers and analyses to various prominent research centers in Europe, America, Russia, and Asia on political tensions between the Gulf states and Iran, the issue of the Iranian nuclear program, the reality of Saudi-Iranian talks, the prospects for rapprochement, and its regional and international repercussions. He has contributions and research works translated into several languages, such as Russian, Persian, and Turkish, which contributed to shaping the discourse on pressing security issues in the region and globally.