Thomas Demmelhuber is Professor of Middle East Politics and Society at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), and visiting professor at the College of Europe (Natolin). He has been researching the Middle East and its transregional entanglements for more than two decades. He has lived and worked in different countries with substantial fieldwork experience all across the region.

As PI and Co-PI he has so far been awarded more than EUR 5 Million in research grants. Demmelhuber has advised different German ministries, the European Parliament (Subcommittee on Human Rights) and various foundations. He is serving in different scientific advisory councils, e.g. the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin (SWP) or the German Orient Institute in Beirut (Max Weber Foundation). Demmelhuber is also a board member and Hon. Secretary of the German Middle East Studies Association. Demmelhuber publishes regularly in leading international journals (e.g. Democratization, Third World Quarterly) and has published/edited numerous books, for example: The comprehensive volume on Authoritarian Gravity Centres: A Cross-Regional Study of Authoritarian Promotion and Diffusion (co-authored with Marianne Kneuer, Routledge 2020, paperback 2021) presents cutting-edge findings on the international dimension of authoritarianism.