Dr Sarah Marsden

Dr Sarah Marsden is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, where she gained her PhD in 2013. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to radical and violent politics, looking at transnational social movements, militant networks, grassroots activists, and those practicing everyday forms of resistance from a range of ideological positions. She has published widely on these subjects, and acted in an advisory capacity to policymakers and practitioners working internationally and nationally (e.g. Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Cabinet Office, House of Lords, Public Safety Canada, FBI). Dr Marsden has been Principal or Co-Investigator on £9m of research projects. This includes leading a programme of research through the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), the UK’s hub for applied security-focused research. This involves sustained engagement with practitioners and policymakers, including significant knowledge exchange and translation activities. Current research includes projects on trauma, adversity and violent extremism; protective factors and constraints on terrorism (CREST funded); an ongoing programme of knowledge synthesis work, most recently producing a series of reports feeding into the refresh of the CONTEST strategy (Home Office funded); and a systematic review of case management interventions to counter radicalisation to violence (funded by Public Safety Canada).