Rachael Rudolph

Dr. Rachael M. Rudolph currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Counterterrorism at Nichols College and an Assistant Professor of Social Science and researcher at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai. Asia (broadly defined) has been her home for almost ten years, and China has been her place of residence since 2018.

Between 2002 and 2013, Dr. Rudolph focused on counterterrorism, mobilization of violent and non-violent actors, refugees, and human rights in the MENA region. Her field research during this period took her to the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. In 2011, she moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to complete her last MENA project, which covered Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism program between 2003 and 2012. The Saudi project ended in 2013, and the book would not be published until 2017.

Between 2014 and 2017 she focused primarily on Southeast Asia and to some extent South Asia. Strategic security in ASEAN, human trafficking, drug trafficking, the ethnic conflict in Myanmar, and North Korea were the projects she concentrated on during these years. While based in Thailand, her research took her to Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, India and South Korea for fieldwork. She taught a range of courses at Webster University’s Thailand campus including introduction to American politics and intelligence studies, comparative politics, global issues, international relations, foreign policy, conflict and terrorism studies, gangs, human trafficking, refugees and migration, social movements, gender, ethnicity and politics, research methods, and more specialized, multidisciplinary courses such as the politics of graffiti and street art.

In 2018, she moved to Zhuhai, China, and currently teaches two global studies’ courses covering on non-traditional security issues such as human security, refugees and irregular migration, terrorism, and trafficking in arms, drugs and humans. Her current research focuses on strategic security in Africa and Central and South Asia. She is the author of four books and numerous journal, think tank, and media articles.

In addition to the above, she has worked with and/or served on the executive boards of several of NGOs in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia; and, serves a private security consultant on a range of issues related to refugees, women empowerment, counterterrorism, and American and Chinese foreign policy.

Research, education, humanitarian causes and helping people in need have been her lifelong pursuits. They have taken her across the globe and introduced her to rage of individuals—from government, security and intelligence personnel to societies’ most disenfranchised communities.

Courses Taught