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Centre members

Full members

Dr Kristian Gustafson Dr Kristian Gustafson
Email Dr Kristian Gustafson Deputy Head of Department / Divisional Lead / Reader
Dr. Gustafson is Reader in Intelligence & War. He is the Deputy Director of BCISS and runs our very successful Distance Learning MA in Intelligence and Security Studies. After an MA at the University of Alberta, Canada, he moved to the UK to take his PhD at Downing College, Cambridge. Before coming to Brunel, Dr. Gustafson was senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He has served in the Canadian Army and as a Reservist in the British Army, and taught at the Joint Services Command and Staff College of the United Kingdom. Dr. Gustafson has conducted consultancy and advisory work for the MOD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, including an integral role in developing UK Joint Intelligence Doctrine. He has provided other work for the UK Land Warfare Centre, the UK Cabinet Office, and multiple units and formations across the UK military. Dr. Gustafson has delivered professional development courses to multiple Allied and partner organisations, including the EU Intelligence Centre, and the governments of Norway, Latvia, France and the United Arab Emirates. In 2013 he worked as an intelligence advisor for the General Command Police Special Units (GCPSU) of the Afghan Ministry of Interior. Dr. Gustafson focuses on the practical aspects of the intelligence enterprise, and especially in analysis, structured analytical tools, and their application. Recent work has included improving counter-poaching outcomes across Africa by better application of intelligence analysis methods, and he has published work on reducing certain types of gun crime by better forms of analysis. His first book, Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964–1974 (2007) is published by Potomac Books, Washington, D.C., and his edited volume Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere (2013, with Prof Philip H.J. Davies) established a new research agenda for comparative work across the intelligence studies academic community. One of his early articles, published in Studies in Intelligence, won in 2003, the CIA’s “Walter L. Pforzheimer Award” for outstanding contribution to the history of intelligence. Intelligence & Intelligence Analysis Doctrine Military Affairs Postgraduate Programmes Programme convenor MA Intelligence and Security Studies (Distance Learning) Module convenor Contemporary Threats & Intelligence Analysis (On-campus & Distance) Classical & Medieval European Warfare Administration Programme Director, BSc Professional Policing Practice Programme Director, MA Intelligence & Security Studies (DL) Director of Studies, MA Intelligence & Security Studies (On-campus & DL)
Dr Steven Wagner Dr Steven Wagner
Email Dr Steven Wagner Senior Lecturer in International Security
I am an historian of intelligence, security, empire and the modern Middle East. Before coming to Brunel, I was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University, Montreal. I received my DPhil from the University of Oxford, and my BA and MA from the University of Calgary. Since 2007, I have been looking at records declassified records in the UK, USA, and Israel which shed new light on the story of the Palestine Mandate, but also on the previously unknown role of intelligence in countering terrorism & insurgency, and in shaping British policy. Qualifications: DPhil – University of Oxford MA – University of Calgary BA – University of Calgary Broadly speaking, my research covers the relationship between intelligence, state and society, and how intelligence services influenced the emergence of the Modern Middle East. Since 2007, I have studied declassified records in the UK, USA, and Israel which shed new light on the story of the Palestine Mandate, but also on the previously unknown role of intelligence in countering terrorism & insurgency, and in shaping British policy. Specifically, he has focused on how intelligence shaped Britain's thirty year rule in Palestine, and its impact upon the Arab-Zionist conflict. intelligence and security british empire the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict strategy & policy
Dr Neveen Shaaban Abdalla Dr Neveen Shaaban Abdalla
Email Dr Neveen Shaaban Abdalla Lecturer in International Relations (Defence and Intelligence)
National and international security Intelligence and policy Social movement escalation Terrorism and counterterrorism Middle East and North Africa (MENA), west Africa focused International Security (Postgraduate) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (Level 6) Conflict in the Modern World (Level 4)
Professor Matthew Seligmann Professor Matthew Seligmann
Email Professor Matthew Seligmann Professor of Naval History
I Joined Brunel as a Reader in 2012 and became a professor in 2015. I am a specialist on intelligence, threat assessment, security, armaments races and the the origins of modern wars. My main focus is on how the the British government responded to the German challenge in the first decades of the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the naval competition between the two countries. I have published widely on these topics, including authoring or co-authoring over ten books, many book chapters and numerous articles and reviews. My teaching tends to focus on questions of intelligence, security and conflict, but I am also interested in how we (individually and as societies) fashion a past useful for the purposes of the present. My current research focuses on the Royal Navy during the era of the Anglo-German antagonism. As a result, I write books and articles that are mostly about British naval policy, armaments races, espionage, battleship building and naval strategy. One of these articles, a study of the origins and creation of the Home Fleet in 1902, won the Julian Corbett Prize, the UK’s principal award for excellence in Naval History. Armaments races, especially the Anglo-German naval race. The origins of modern wars, especially the First World War. Military and Naval Intelligence and threat assessment. Module convenor PX1611 The Problem of the Past (Yr 1) PX2604 First World War (Yr 2) PP3620 The Royal Navy in the Era of the Great Naval Races (Yr 3) Administration Director of Internationalisation, SPS. Academic Exchanges Coordinator, Politics and History.

Associate members

Dr Martin Hansen Dr Martin Hansen
Email Dr Martin Hansen Associate Dean (QA) / Reader - Politics
Dr Martin Ejnar Hansen is a political scientist specialising in Comparative European Politics and Public Policy with specific focus on parliaments, governments and parties. Before joining Brunel he was employed at the University of Southern Denmark, University of Aarhus and the University of Vienna. Qualifications: PhD Political Science (Aarhus) cand.scient.pol. (MSc Political Science) (Southern Denmark) BSc Political Science (Southern Denmark) My research is focused on parliaments and political parties in Western Europe. Primarily, it is based on quantitative methods. My recent research has focused on committee assignments in parliaments and on roll call voting in constitutional assemblies and pre-WW2 legislatures. I also have a continued interest in party manifestos and speeches and applied quantitative text analysis. Special Research Institute(s) The Magna Carta Institute Parliaments Political parties West European politics Governments Undergraduate Programmes Module convenor Explaining Politics: Quantitative Political Science in Practice (Yr 2) Public Policy Analysis (Yr 3) Advanced Applied Quantitative Methods (Yr 3)
Dr Christian Heitsch Dr Christian Heitsch
Email Dr Christian Heitsch Senior Lecturer in Law
Christian Heitsch joined Brunel in 2008, having previously worked in private practice and higher education in Germany and the U.S. He still takes pride in having helped successfully challenge the planning permission for the Muelheim-Kaerlich nuclear power plant in Germany and lobby the U.S. Export-Import-Bank against providing guarantees for the export of reactor technology for the Temelin nuke in the Czech Republic. He has made submissions / responses to consultations to the UK Parliament, the European Parliament and the European Commission. As part-time advisor with a German law firm, he recently prepared a submission to an international supervisory body – the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee –, alleging that German environmental law is incompatible with the Aarhus Convention about public participation and access to justice in environmental matters. He teaches Public, European Union and Environmental Law, making a point of using ‘stop-press’ recently decided cases and current events to illustrate the legal principles. His research focusses on Human Rights and Environmental Law. He is a member of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies (BCISS). Qualifications: Extraordinary Professor (Trier, 2007); Habilitation / Venia Legendi (Trier, 2000); Bar Exam / Second Exam (Munich, 1994); LLD (Regensburg, 1992); Law degree / First Exam (Regensburg, 1989); FHEA (2011) Environmental law; European Union law; Human rights; International trade law; Public international law Student Support Senior Tutor (Term 1) Convenor, Mitigating Circumstances Panel Convenor, LLM Examinations
Miss Dilruba Karim Miss Dilruba Karim
Email Miss Dilruba Karim Senior Lecturer in Economics and Finance
Since completion of my PhD I have been employed as a lecturer at Brunel with a focus on research into banking crises. I am also a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. I have collaborated on research for the Financial Services Authority, EU Commission, and HM Treasury. Qualifications: PhD Economics (Brunel University) BSc Economics (Brunel University) My research focuses on the prediction of banking crises and their economic impacts. I am interested in Early Warning System design and how policy makers can use such models to avert the costs of crises. In conjunction, my work covers financial regulation and its associated costs. I have examined banking systems in the OECD, Latin America, Caribbean and Asia. Recently my focus has turned to the role of domestic credit in crisis evolution. Early Warning Systems Banking Crises Financial Regulation Undergraduate Programmes Module convenor Macroeconomic Principles (Yr 1) Module contributor Dissertation Module (Yr 3) Postgraduate Programmes Module convenor MSc Banking Module contributor Business Finance Workshop Administration Clearing Admissions Tutor Recruitment and Admissions Committee (RAC) member

Research Fellows

  • Wing Commander Toby Steward (RAF)