Sergio Altuna

Dr. Sergio Altuna is a Senior Research Fellow for the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University. His areas of expertise include violent non-state actors in the Great Maghreb and the Sahel; contemporary Islamist thought; Islamist narratives; and the development of alternative narratives and counternarratives. He also specializes in the creation of monitoring and evaluation tools to measure the impact of security policies in unstable environments.

His PhD research focused on the evolution of jihadi narratives, implementing for that purpose an innovative approach based on the compilation, the systematized coding, and the exploitation of an electronic, monolingual, specialized, and diachronic corpus of all relevant propaganda publications by AQIM. Dr. Altuna also holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Valladolid, an MA in Arabic Language, Literature, and History from the University of Tunis al-Manar, and another MA in Terrorism Studies from the International University of La Rioja. 

Prior to joining the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University, apart from his research, Dr. Altuna also developed a career as an international consultant working with institutions such as NATO Strategic Direction-South Hub, the Japanese Ministry of Defense, and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. In addition to his work as a researcher and consultant, he has lectured at several universities, both in the field of linguistics at University of Jendouba (Tunisia) and at University of the Ionian Islands (Greece), and in the field of social sciences and law at Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain) and at Pablo de Olavide University (Spain). Dr. Altuna is also an Associate Analyst in the Program on Violent Radicalization and Global Terrorism at the Elcano Royal Institute.

Having resided most of his professional life in different countries in North Africa, Dr. Altuna is fluent in Spanish, English, French, Arabic, and Greek.