Mia Bloom
Professor Communication, Middle East Studies Center- Education
PhD, Columbia University
Masters, Georgetown University
Bachelors, McGill University
- Specializations
Terrorism, Extremism, Child Soldiers
- Biography
Mia Bloom is a fellow with New America's International Security program and professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She conducts ethnographic field research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She has authored several books and articles on terrorism and violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (2007) Bombshell: Women and Terror (2011) and Small Arms: Children and Terror (2019). Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and McGill Universities. Bloom’s newest book is Veiled Threats; Women and Global Jihad is scheduled for 2021 release. Bloom has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, a master's in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies.
Awards & Fellowships:
International Security Fellow, New America. Washington: DC February 2020 – present
Ridgeway Center Senior Fellow, University of Pittsburgh. October 2020 – present
Member of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL), March 2020 - present
Member of the Research Network for the United Nations Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (UNCTED), September 2017- present, briefed the UN Security Council on December 3, 2018 on female and child returning ISIS foreign fighters, policy advisor to UNITAD for prosecution of ISIS war crimes
Expert Witness, Federal Criminal Prosecution, Department of Justice (DoJ), April 2020 - present
Expert Witness, Crown Law Office, Wellington, New Zealand October 2020 – present
Radicalization Expert Board, Anti Defamation League (ADL) Research Task Force, Washington, DC October 2018 – present
Advisor on Female Radicalization, White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), February 18-21, 2015.
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 Steering Committee, in association with the Count Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) Expert Group, Sweden and PRIO, Norway, September 2008 - present
Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Research Associate, Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, 2013 – present
- Publications
Books:
Bloom, M. (Scheduled for 2021 release). Veiled Threats: Women and Jihad. Washington, DC: Brookings Press [in press].
Bloom, M. (2019). Small Arms: Children and Terrorism. NY: Cornell University Press. [Nominated for the Grawemeyer Award for the best book Improving World Order. And Best Book for the Terrorism and Bias Crime Division for the Association for the Study of Criminology]
Bloom, M. (2011). Bombshell: Women and Terrorism. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- UK: Bombshell: The Many Faces of Women Terrorists. London: Hurst Publications.
- Netherlands: Dutch Translation: Met volle overtuiging: vrouwen en terreur. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Leitung Press.
Licklider R. & Bloom, M. (eds.), (2006). Living Together After Ethnic Killing, UK: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Press (published in the United States 2007).
Bloom, M. (2005). Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. NY: Columbia University Press (expanded 2nd edition, June 2007). Re-released as an audio book April 2020: https://www.audible.com/pd/Dying-to-Kill-Audiobook/B087C9BQQ5.
Articles:
Ellis, H. B, Cardeli, E, Bloom, M. and S. Weine, (2020) “Understanding the needs of children returning from ISIS controlled territories through an Emotional Security Theory lens: Implications for practice,” Child Abuse & Neglect vol. 109 November https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104754
Bloom, M. (2020) “Conducting Field Research in the Time of Corona.” PS Special Issue with Ora Szekely and Peter Krause. [accepted]
Bloom, M. & Lokmanoglu, A., (2020) “From Pawn to Knight. Women’s Roles in Terrorism.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759263 reprinted in Phelan, A. (ed.) Terrorism Women and Gender: Towards an Integrative Research Agenda. UK: Routledge, Nov. 2020.
Abeysinghe, B., M. Bloom, and R. Sunderraman, (2019) “Localizing Assault Rifles in ISIS Propaganda Images; Experiments of a semantic segmentation approach.” Transactions on Computational Social Systems IEEE.
Cardeli, E., Bloom, M., Gillespie, S., Zayed, T., & Ellis, H.B., (2019). “Exploring the Social-Ecological Factors that Mobilize Children Into Violence” Terrorism and Political Violence. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2019.1701444
Bloom, M. & Daymon, C., (2018). “Addicted to Terror? Charting the Psychological Qualities of ISIS Social Media.” Orbis https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0030438718300437
Bloom, M., Tiflati, H, and Horgan J. (2017). “Navigating ISIS’ Preferred Platform: Telegram.” Terrorism and Political Violence, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2017.1339695
Bloom, M. (2017). “Constructing Expertise: Terrorist Recruitment and “Talent Spotting” in the PIRA, Al Qaeda, and ISIS.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism vol. 40 Iss. 7 pp.603-623.
Gill, P., Horner, E., Bouhana, N., Bloom, M., and Horgan, J., (2017). “Terrorist Use of the Internet by the Numbers: Quantifying Behaviors, Patterns, and Processes. Criminology and Public Policy,” Vol 16 Iss 1 February, pp. 99-117.
Horgan, J., Taylor, M., and Bloom, M., (2017). “From Cubs to Lions: A Community of Practice Perspective on Child Socialization into the Islamic State.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Vol 40. Iss. 7, pp.645-654.
Bloom, M. & Matfess, H. (2016). “Female Suicide Bombers in Nigeria: Boko Haram’s Victims or Perpetrators?” Prism Journal, Center for Complex Operations, National Defense University vol. 6 #1, pp. 105-121.
Bloom, M., (2015). “Cubs of the Caliphate: Children of ISIS.” Foreign Affairs July 21, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-07-21/cubs-caliphate
Chapters in Edited Volumes:
Bloom, M. (2020). “Economics of Suicide Terror: the Curious Case of Sri Lanka” in Günther Schultze (ed), The Handbook of the Economics of Terrorism. Ch.31 UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bloom, M. and Warpinski, K. (2020). “Children in Violent Extremist Movements.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Victor Asal (ed.), Oxford University Press.
Bloom, M. (2020). “Feminism, Rape and War: Engendering Suicide Terror?” In Women’s Voices: Perspectives on Violence, Threats, and Human Security. Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, Richard Matthew, Tera Dornfeld, and Patricia A. Weitsman (eds.). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, ch.3.
Bloom, M. and Lokmanoglu, A., (2020). “Conducting ‘Virtual Fieldwork’ ISIS Channels on Telegram.” In Ora Szekely and Peter J. Krause (eds.), Stories from the Field: An Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science. New York: Columbia University Press, ch.19.
Bloom, M. (2019). “Women and Violent Extremism: the Past and Future Face of Terrorism” Women and Countering Violent Extremism. Lina Elsayed & Sarah Zeiger, (eds.) NATO/OTAN Publishers, Geneva, ch.7.
Bloom, M. (2019). “Weaponizing the Weak: the Growing Role of Children in Terrorist Groups.” Research Handbook on Child Soldiers. Mark A. Drumbl and Jastine C. Barrett (eds.), Edward Elgar Publishers, chapter 9.
UNDP and ICAN/WASL, (2019). Invisible Women: Gendered Dimensions of Disengagement, Rehabilitation and Reintegration from Violent Extremism. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Melinda Holmes (eds.), New York: United Nations Publications, January 11, 2019 (contributor) http://www.icanpeacework.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/INVISIBLE-WOMEN-Full-Report.pdf
Bloom, M. (2018). “Child Soldiers in Armed Conflict” 2018 Armed Conflict Survey. IISS London (pp.36-50).
Bloom, M. (2017). “Constructing Cultures of Martyrdom Across Religions, Time and Space.” In Michael Stohl, Scott Englund, and Richard Burchill (Eds.), The Construction of Terrorism. Los Angeles: University of California Press (pp. 181-192).
Bloom, M. (2017). “Women and Terrorism.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. London: Oxford University Press (pp. 16-39).
Bloom, M. (2016). Hrair Cabayan and Sarah Canna (eds.), Strategic MultiLayer Assessment (SMA) Washington, District of Columbia: US Army CENTCOM (Central Command).
Bloom, M. (2015). “She-hadis? Online Radicalization and Terrorist Recruitment of Women.” In Julie Rajan and Sanja Bahun (eds.), Violence and Gender in a Globalized World, Farnham: Ashgate (pp. 225-254).
Occasional Publications/Op Eds:
Bloom, M. (2020). “Vehicle Ramming: The Evolution of a Terrorist Tactic.” Just Security, July 16, 2020, https://www.justsecurity.org/71431/vehicle-ramming-the-evolution-of-a-terrorist-tactic-inside-the-us/
Bloom, M. (2020). “Far Right Infiltrators and Agitators in the George Floyd Protests.” Just Security, May 30, 2020. https://www.justsecurity.org/70497/far-right-infiltrators-and-agitators-in-george-floyd-protests-indicators-of-white-supremacists/ Entered officially into the US Congressional Record, June 10, 2020.
Bloom, M. (2020) How Terrorists will Capitalize on the Coronavirus Crisis, Just Security, April 3, 2020 https://www.justsecurity.org/69508/how-terrorist-groups-will-try-to-capitalize-on-the-coronavirus-crisis/
Bloom, M. (2020) Forgotten Children of ISIS, Zocalo Public Square, April 2, 2020. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/04/02/children-isis-fighters-limbo/ideas/essay/
Bloom, M. (2019) “No Place to Hide, No Place to Post. Lessons from the Recent Efforts at De-Platforming ISIS.” Just Security, December 5, 2019, https://www.justsecurity.org/67605/no-place-to-hide-no-place-to-post-lessons-from-recent-efforts-at-de-platforming-isis/
Bloom, M. (2019) Does Telegram Foster Online Addiction to Terrorist Propaganda? Preliminary Findings. Owl in the Olive Tree, The DoD Minerva Research Blog May 29, 2019 https://minerva.defense.gov/Owl-In-the-Olive-Tree/Owl_View/Article/1859857/telegram-and-online-addiction-to-terrorist-propaganda/
Bloom, M. (2018). Rise of the 'revolutionary womb': The truth about female Jihadis in Britain. Telegraph (UK), June 5, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/rise-revolutionary-womb-truth-female-jihadis-britain/.
Bloom, M. (2017). Why Is Alt-right Favorite and Academic Fraud Seb Gorka Starring in an Israeli Counter-terror Conference? September 11, 2017, Tel Aviv: Ha’aretz. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.811450
Cottee, S. & Bloom, M. (2017). Myth of the ISIS Female Suicide Bomber. The Atlantic. September 8, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/isis-female-suicide-bomber/539172/
Bloom, M. (2017). The Islamic State Group has Weaponized children. Macleans. My 24, 2017 http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/islamic-state-has-weaponized-children/
Bloom, M. (2016). “How Islamic State Recruits and Coerces Children.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/25/how-the-islamic-state-recruits-and-coerces-children/?utm_term=.e40859c32a75
Bloom, M. (2016). Allied Tactical Publication (ATP) 3.4.4.1 COIN Tactics. NATO's COIN TACTICS.
Bloom, M. (2016). ISIS defectors: Why they sometimes walk free. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/opinions/isis-swedish-teen-social-marlin-stivani-nivarlain/
Bloom, M. (2016). “Was the Nice Attacker Really an ISIS ‘Lone Wolf’?” The Wire. http://thewire.in/author/mia-bloom/
Bloom, M. (2016). “Are Bystanders to Blame for Terrorism?” Daily Beast, June 14, 2016. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/14/terrorism-s-bystander-effect.html.
Bloom, M. (2016). “Brussels Terrorist Brothers: Why Does Jihad Run in the Family?” Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/24/brussels-terrorist-brothers-why-does-jihad-run-in-the-family.html