C. Christine Fair is Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Her research focuses on South Asian security, militancy, counterinsurgency, political Islam, and the strategic behaviour of states and non-state actors. She previously served as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, a political officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate at the United States Institute of Peace. Her latest book, The Literature of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba: Deadly Lines of Control, co-authored with Safina Ustad, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.
Professor Fair has written, co-written, and edited numerous influential books, including In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, Pakistan’s Enduring Challenges, Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents, Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh, Treading on Hallowed Ground, and The Madrassah Challenge. She has also written on food and politics in The Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States. She is a member of Women in International Security, the International Studies Association, and the Association for Asian Studies, and serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly and policy journals. She holds a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations and an MA from the Harris School of Public Policy, both from the University of Chicago. She reads, writes, and speaks Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi, bringing deep linguistic and regional expertise to her scholarship and public commentary on South Asia.
