Julie Chernov Hwang

Julie Chernov Hwang is a Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center who has spent over a decade researching terrorist behavior from initial radicalization to commitment and participation in acts of terrorism to disengagement, reintegration, rehabilitation and deradicalization.

Dr. Chernov Hwang is an associate professor of political science and international relations at Goucher College. She is the recipient of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award (2023-2024) where she will study terror cell construction. She is an expert on terrorist behavior in Southeast Asia.

She is the author of Becoming Jihadis: Radicalization and Commitment in Southeast Asia(Oxford University Press, 2023); Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists (Cornell University Press, 2018); Peaceful Islamist Mobilization in the Muslim World: What Went Right, (Palgrave Press, 2009); and the co-editor of Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). Her articles have been published in Political Psychology, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, Asian Survey, Asian Security, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific Issues, Southeast Asia Research, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, RSIS Commentaries, CTC Sentinel, the Middle East-Asia Project, and Lawfare.

Her current research explores the role of social networks in the construction of Jemaah Islamiyah, ISIS, and Al Qaeda terrorist cells; the role of formers in multi-sectoral P/CVE programming; how we can best measure progress in deradicalization; and cross-ideological trends in disengagement, reintegration and rehabilitation.