Gerd Nonneman is professor of Arab Gulf studies and a former Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Since September 2011, he has been the Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University's campus in Qatar.[1] He also serves as professor of international relations and Middle Eastern politics, which involves teaching and supervising a number of students, as well as conducting his own research. He is a former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES).
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Born in Flanders (Temse, 1959) and educated at Ghent University, Belgium in Oriental Philology (Arabic) and, at postgraduate level, in Development Studies, Professor Nonneman subsequently worked in the commercial sector in Iraq for a number of years during the 1980s, before returning to academia and further studies - including a doctorate in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter.
After teaching Middle East politics and political economy at Manchester and Exeter Universities, and a spell as Visiting Professor at the International University of Japan, he taught International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University from 1993 to 2007, at which point he returned to Exeter.
He was a member of the UK's 2001 National Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) panel on Middle Eastern Studies, and served as Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) between 1998 and 2002. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs).
Nonneman is the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula specialist of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs, London). He has acted as a consultant to or worked with a range of companies, national and international official institutions including the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, foreign ministries in Europe and the Middle East, the European Commission, and various NGOs - ranging from Amnesty International to the Bertelsmann Foundation. He has also been a regular media commentator on Middle Eastern and Gulf affairs, and has frequently acted as expert witness on human rights cases relating to the Middle East.