About Us
Emily Blout, Director
Dr. Emily Blout is a media scholar and historian. She is the author of Media and Power in Modern Iran: Mass Communication, Ideology, and the State (Bloomsbury, 2023), which examines the political and technological history of media in Iran over the course of more than eight decades and two political regimes, from Imperial Iran to the Islamic Republic.
Dr. Blout is a Georgetown University faculty member at the Center for Jewish Civilization, a visiting professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT).
She holds a Ph.D. in History, Iranian Studies from the University of St. Andrews, and an M.A. in Security Studies from the National Defense University.
Bruce Hoffman, Symposium Chair
Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for over four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and until recently was director of its Center for Security Studies and Security Studies Program. Hoffman is also visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation, where he was also director of RAND’s Washington Office and vice president for external affairs.
Hoffman was appointed by the U.S. Congress as a commissioner on the 9/11 Review Commission and has been Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq; and, an adviser on counterinsurgency to Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad, Iraq. Hoffman’s most recent books include The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat (2014); Anonymous Soldiers (2015); and, Inside Terrorism (3rd edition, 2017). Hoffman is currently a Wilson Center Global Fellow, a visiting senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center.
Brittany Fried
Brittany's upbringing in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and around the United States inspired her interest in post-conflict and interreligious education. This shaped her undergraduate experience at Georgetown University (SFS’19), through which she pursued a B.S. in Foreign Service with a major in Regional and Comparative Studies of Asia and Africa and a certificate in Jewish Civilization. Brittany has previously co-published a leadership curriculum implemented at schools in India, South Africa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Cambodia; conducted post-conflict education research in Rwanda and Timor-Leste; and served as an Anti-Defamation League intern, D.C. Public School Global Curriculum Fellow and Berkeley Center Education and Social Justice Fellow.
Jocelyn Flores
Originally from Miami, Florida, Jocelyn is a first-generation college graduate. She received her B.A. from Georgetown University (COL’17), where she majored in Government and minored in Jewish Civilization. Prior to working for the CJC, she interned for the State Department’s Office of Religion in Global Affairs under the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Ira Forman.