Geneive Abdo is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, where she specializes in Iraq, Iran, and Shia-Sunni relations. She is also a lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Her current research focuses on the shifting political and religious alliances within Shia communities in the Middle East.
She has worked at several Washington-based think tanks, including the Atlantic Council and the Stimson Center. From 2013-2016, she was a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Abdo is the author of four books, including The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi’a-Sunni Divide, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.
She was formerly the liaison officer for the Alliance of Civilizations, a UN initiative established by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which aimed to improve relations between Islamic and Western societies.
Before joining the United Nations, Abdo was a foreign correspondent, where her 20-year career focused on coverage of the Middle East and the Muslim world. From 1998 to 2001, she was the Iran correspondent for the The Guardian and a regular contributor to The Economist and the International Herald Tribune. She was the first American journalist to be based in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Her work on Islam and the Middle East have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Washington Post, and other publications. She has received many awards for her scholarship, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
She is a frequent speaker at universities, think tanks, and international institutions in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
Publications:
- Egypt, COVID-19, and the economy: A combustible mix? May 18, 2020