Lydia Khalil is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute in the Transnational Challenges Program as well as the Project Director of the Digital Threats to Democracy Project and a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University.  

She is the author of the book Rise of the Extreme Right: The New Global Extremism and the Threat to Democracy (Penguin, 2022). Lydia has spent her career focusing on the intersection between governance, technology and security. She has a broad range of policy, research and private sector experience and has a professional background in international relations, national security and strategic intelligence analysis, with a particular focus on terrorism and other forms of political violence.  

Lydia is also the co-convener of the Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism (AVERT) Research Network. She is a research member of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) where she leads the Crisis Points project on the intersection of disasters, extremism and disinformation. She serves as an editorial board member of the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.

Lydia is also a member of the US based Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group and the United Nations Security Council’s Global Research Network (GRN). Lydia has held previous appointments as an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Macquarie University. She has previously served in senior roles with the US Department of Defense, the Boston Police Department and New York Police Department. Lydia is a frequent media commentator and has published widely in both popular and academic publications on her areas of expertise.

She holds a BA in International Relations from Boston College and a Master’s in International Security from Georgetown University.