Professional Affiliation

Research Associate and Instructor, Harvard University

Expert Bio

Asher Orkaby is a research associate and instructor at Harvard University. He was previously an associate research scholar at Princeton University’s Transregional Institute and a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Orkaby earned his PhD from Harvard University in international history and Middle Eastern studies and is the author of Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68 (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Yemen: What Everyone Needs to Know (OUP, 2021). During the current conflict in Yemen, he has contributed regularly to Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, and many other policy publications and has commented on both English and Arabic media, such as C-SPAN, Al Jazeera, and Al Arabiya. His current research focuses on the history of chemical warfare in the Middle East.

Wilson Center Project

The Tenuous Taboo: Chemical Weapons in the Middle East