Dr. Omer Taspinar is the Co-Director of the US-Turkey project at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He completed his doctorate studies on Political Islam and Kurdish nationalism in Turkey at the European Studies Department of SAIS, Johns Hopkins University in 2001.

The courses he has been teaching at SAIS include: Islam and Europe; Turkish Domestic and Foreign Policy; Western European Political Economy; French Domestic and Foreign Policy and International Political Economy. Prior to his teaching and research career, he worked as a consultant, at the Strategic Planning Unit of TOFAS- FIAT during 1996-1997 (Istanbul).

His recent publications include: Europe's Muslim Street Foreign Policy (March-April 2003); An Uneven Fit: The Turkish Model and the Arab World (Brookings Analysis Paper, August 2003); Fighting Radicalism with Human Development(Brookings Press,  2004); Political Islam and Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey (Routledge, 2004).

Dr. Taspinar speaks Turkish (native), French, English, and Italian.