Reem Turkmani is Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she leads a research group examining how legitimate bottom-up governance and civicness are constructed and contested in authoritarian and conflict contexts, with a particular focus on the Middle East.
Trained in theoretical astrophysics, Dr Turkmani brings a systems-based, empirically rigorous approach to complex political environments. She develops analytical frameworks that capture the interplay of geopolitical dynamics, local drivers, economic structures and environmental pressures in conflict settings.
Her work bridges theory and practice. She played a central role in establishing mechanisms for civil society contribution to UN-led mediation processes, and her research on political economy and governance has informed how the EU, the UK and other countries design donor interventions in conflict settings. Most recently, she co-authored a study commissioned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that set the conflict research priority agenda for the UK government.
Her honours include the 2023 RSE Mary Somerville Medal, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship (2005), a place among Muslim Science magazine’s twenty most influential women in science in the Islamic world (2015), and the Muslim Woman in Science Award (2021).
She curated the international exhibition Arabick Roots, which traced the influence of Arabic and Islamic science and culture on seventeenth-century Europe and was shown at the Royal Society in London and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.