Elizabeth Pearson is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in War Studies at King’s College London. She specialises in gender and ‘radicalisation’, with an interest in both Islamism and the counter-Jihad. Elizabeth has also studied with VOX-Pol, a European Union funded network aimed at understanding online political violence, where she focused on gender, Twitter and ISIS.
Elizabeth maintains a database of female suicide attacks by Boko Haram, and has written and commented on gender-based violence and Boko Haram for outlets including The International Business Times, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Mail, Daily Beast, Deutsche Welle, AFP, BBC World Service, BBC World, CKNW and BBC Radio Five Live.
She holds a Master's degree in War Studies from King’s College London, where she was a Simon O’Dwyer Russell prize-winner (2013). Elizabeth also has a BA degree in German and Philosophy from Wadham College, Oxford University and worked for some years in radio journalism at the BBC before academia.