Dr Amjed Rasheed completed his PhD at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA) in 2017, when he joined the Transnational Strand of the Cross-Language Dynamics programme of research as PDRA on the subproject 'Transnational Language, Transient Identities and the Crisis of the State in the Arab Region', led by Professor Anoush Ehteshami. His research focuses on the politics of MENA, the state, and the evolution of political Islam and global Jihad. He has been exploring the rise of IS and its effect on regional dynamics. This includes scrutinising transnational circulations of Islamist rhetoric in Arab-language media. He looks at how the use of discourse shapes and propagates competing paradigms of identity, history and community.