Dr Sarah Marsden

Dr Sarah Marsden is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, from where she gained her PhD in 2013. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to radical and violent politics, looking at transnational social movements, militant networks, grassroots activists, and those practicing everyday forms of resistance from a range of ideological positions. She has published widely on these subjects and has acted in an advisory capacity to policymakers and practitioners, internationally and nationally.

Dr Marsden has been Principal or Co-Investigator on £9m of research projects. This includes leading a programme of research through the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), the UK’s hub for applied security-focused research. Her research involves sustained engagement with practitioners and policymakers, including significant knowledge exchange and translation activities and includes recent work on trauma, adversity and violent extremism; protective factors and constraints on terrorism; and case management interventions to counter radicalisation to violence.