Joshua Landis is Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies in the Boren College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He publishes frequently in policy journals such as Foreign Affairs, Middle East Policy and Foreign Policy. His book: Syria at Independence, Nationalism, Leadership, and Failure of Republicanism will be published by the Arab Center for research and Policy studies this coming year, and he writes and manages “SyriaComment.com,” a newsletter on Syrian politics. He has written many scholarly articles and is a frequent analyst on TV, radio, and in print and has appeared many times on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. He is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute in Washington DC. 

He has received three Fulbright Grants to support his research in Syria and won numerous prizes for his teaching. He is past President of the Syrian Studies Association and has consulted with many branches of the U.S. government. He has lived over 15 years in the Middle East and 4 in Syria. He spent most summers in Syria before the uprising on 2011. 

He was educated at Swarthmore (BA), Harvard (MA), and Princeton (PhD). He is married to Manar Kashour and has two sons, Jonah and Kendall.