Lorenzo G. Vidino

Lorenzo G. Vidino is an Italian-American writer on Islamism in Europe and North America, with a special focus on the Muslim Brotherhood. Since June 2015, he has headed the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security's Program on Extremism.

Prior to his current role, he held positions at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the RAND Corporation, and the Center for Security Studies (ETH Zurich). From 2016 to 2018, he served as Italy’s Coordinator of the National Commission on Jihadist Radicalization, under the governments of Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni.

Vidino has written two books about the Muslim Brotherhood in the West, ''The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West'' (2010) and ''The Closed Circle: Joining and Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood in the West'' (2020), both published by Columbia University Press.

Some critics have claimed that Vidino's research "promotes conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the United States" and leads to the criminalization of Muslim civil society. This criticism was levied by the Bridge Initiative, a research group housed at Georgetown's Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

In 2014, Vidino served as an expert for the UK government’s official review of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2018, he was hired by Mario Brero, owner of a Swiss private intelligence agency, to share information on alleged Muslim Brotherhood operatives in Europe. Provided by Wikipedia