Cole Bunzel

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

Cole Bunzel is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, where his research focuses on the history of Wahhabism, the puritan Islamic reform movement in Saudi Arabia. A former fellow with the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Damascus, Syria, he has also studied and researched in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Additionally, his works deals in depth with the jihadi movement identified with such groups as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). He writes for the blog www.jihadica.com and is the author of, most recently, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State (Brookings Institution, March 2015).