Max Erdemandi is a Faculty Specialist at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. As a member of the “Political Instability, Counterterrorism, and Gray Zone Conflict” portfolio, he works on government-funded (DOD, DOS, NIJ, CTTSO, SMA) research and education initiatives on counterterrorism policy and efficacy, P/CVE programming, partner capacity building, near-peer competition and cooperation, and strategic influence. In addition, he works with START's Education and Training team to coordinate the joint "U.S. Perspectives on Contemporary Security Issues & U.S.-Australia Cooperation" workshop with Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). He has bilingual fluency in Turkish and have given talks and published on Turkish elections, national security and grand strategy, and U.S.-Turkey cooperation on counterterrorism and regional security. Mr. Erdemandi holds a B.A. in American & Cultural Studies from Hacettepe University (Ankara) and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies from Duke University, focusing on state terrorism, social policy, and the Middle East. He is also an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State's Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (KLYES) program. Prior to joining START, he worked as a Researcher and Laboratory Manager at Duke University's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), supervising multiple projects funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Minerva Research Initiative and the Army Research Office, and as a Program Advisor at SUNY’s Global Affairs Office. You can follow Mr. Erdemandi on Twitter: @maxerdemandi
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