Professor Marie Breen-Smyth is a Professor of International Politics and Director of Research in the School of Politics, and Academic Director of the Centre for International Intervention (cii), a research initiative aimed at re-examining dominant ideas about international intervention with a view to incorporating non-Western and non-elite perspectives.

Marie has scholarly links in mainland Europe, South and West Africa, India, South America, the United States, Canada, Australia; she is also a Research Affiliate at the National Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies in the University of Otago, New Zealand. Previously, she was Director of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence (CSRV) in the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University. From 2002-2003 she was Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Together with Richard Jackson and Jeroen Gunning she has advocated a more critical approach within ‘terrorism' studies and with Jackson, Gunning, George Kassimeris and Piers Robinson, she is a founder editor of  the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism. Her recent books are The Ashgate Research Companion on Political Violence (Ashgate, 2012) and Terrorism; a critical introduction (with Richard Jackson, Lee Jarvis and Jeroen Gunning); a jointly edited work with Richard Jackson and Jeroen Gunning Critical Terrorism Studies (Routledge, 2008) and Truth and justice after violent conflict: managing violent pasts (Routledge, 2007).   

Professor Marie Breen-Smyth will take over the AD-International role from Professor Rachel Fensham when she steps down from this post in June.