Professor Alpaslan Özerdem is the Dean of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at George Mason University. He is the author of seven books, most recently International Peacebuilding: An Introduction (with S.Y. Lee, Routledge, 2015) and the editor of several volumes, including The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics (with M. Whiting, Routledge, 2019). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Online Journal of Conflict Transformation and Security (published by UK think-tank Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis) and a frequent contributor to The Conversation.

Dr Ahmet Erdi Öztürk is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Relations and Politics at London Metropolitan University and a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at Coventry University in the UK and GIGA in Germany. He is also an associate researcher (Chercheur Associé) at Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes and editor of International Journal of Religion. He was a Swedish Institute Pre and Post-Doctoral Fellow at Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), at Linköping University, Scholar in Residence at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the author of more than 20 articles, numerous policy reports, opinion pieces and co-editor of four special issues and two books on religion and politics and Turkish politics. He is a regular contributor to media outlets such as Open Democracy, The Conversation, Huffington Post and France 24.