Elisabeth Kendall is senior research fellow in Arabic and Islamic studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University. Previously, she held tenured positions or fellowships at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and Harvard. Before returning to Oxford in 2010, she served as director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, a UK government sponsored initiative aimed at building research expertise.

Kendall spends significant time in the field, particularly in Yemen, and acts as pro-bono international advisor to a cross-tribal council in eastern Yemen that promotes community cohesion as a counterweight to al-Qaeda and Daesh expansion. She has delivered invited lectures at numerous universities globally as well as in the House of Lords, House of Commons, FCO, NATO and various British and international military establishments. She features regularly in the international media and is the author or editor of several books, including ReClaiming Islamic Tradition (2016, with Ahmad Khan), Twenty-First Century Jihad (2015, with Ewan Stein) and Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde: Intersection in Egypt (2006, 2010). She also conceived of and edits the “Modern Middle Eastern Vocabularies” series, which includes the titles Security Arabic, Intelligence Arabic and Media Arabic.