Lauren Mellinger joined BICOM in 2016 as a Research Fellow. She is also currently pursuing a PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, where her research focuses on Israeli counterterrorism, national security decision-making, and hybrid organizations. Prior to joining BICOM, she was a Senior Research Assistant at the Center for Middle East Policy (CMEP) at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She previously worked as a research assistant at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and at the International Institute for Counter-terrorism in Herzliya, Israel. Lauren holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from the George Washington University, and earned a Juris Doctor and Master’s in International Relations from Syracuse University.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.