Simone Tholens is Associate Professor of International Relations at John Cabot University, and part-time professor at the European University Institute/Robert Schuman Centre. Her main research interest are interventions, security assistance, bordering processes, and materiality of global war practices, as well as theories of contestation and practice. She has worked on these issues in the Middle East, Western Balkans and South East Asia. In her research, she combines critical approaches to security & conflict, with practice-based methodologies. Professor Tholens was previously a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University (2016-2021), and the Co-founder and Director of the Centre for Conflict, Security and Societies. She has also taught at Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe as an Adjunct Professor, teaching Conflict Management and Europe-Middle East relations. After graduating with a PhD in International Relations at the European University Institute (2012), she was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the EUI, working on the ERC funded Borderlands project (2013-2016). She has also been a visiting fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs (NUPI) and the Wissenshaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) and has held the Leverhulme Trust’s International Academic Fellowship (2020-2021).