About Julia

Dr Julia Ebner is a researcher specialising in radicalisation, extremism and terrorism studies. She is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Calleva Centre of Evolution and Human Sciences at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. Julia completed her DPhil in Anthropology at the University of Oxford as a fully funded ESRC DTP Scholar and a St John’s College Alumni Fund Scholar. Based on her DPhil research, she was a finalist for the ESRC Impact Prize 2023 and won the MRS President’s Medal 2023. 

After completing a dual master’s degree in international relations and history at LSE and Peking University, Julia worked as a researcher for the Quilliam Foundation and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for several years. On the basis of her research on extremist movements and activities in the UK, Europe and North America, she acted as a Special Advisor on Terrorism Prevention for the United Nations and has given evidence to parliamentary working groups, intelligence agencies and tech companies. On the side, she works as an investigative journalist and writer, regularly contributing to The Guardian, The Independent, The Washington Post and other outlets. 

Julia's first book The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) received the 2018 Bruno Kreisky Award for the Political Book of the Year 2018 and was translated into several languages. Her second internationally bestselling book Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists (Bloomsbury) was a Telegraph Book of the Year 2020 and won the "Science Book of the Year 2020" prize ("Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2020") as well as the Dr Caspar Einem Prize. Her latest book Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over (Ithaka Press) was released in 2023.