Rebecca is an award-winning researcher and broadcaster focusing on the conflicts and cultures of the Middle East and Africa.
Her diverse work has appeared on the BBC The New York Times, Al Jazeera, PBS and Channel 5, among others.
Rebecca has spent the past ten years living and working throughout the Middle East and Africa region, basing herself variously in Cairo, Khartoum, Doha, and Erbil. During this time she has won a number of awards for her research, including a fully-funded AHRC doctoral grant and a Journalism Award from the Centre of Religious and Global Affairs.
Alongside extensive solo research she has worked as a consultant for institutions such as the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the High Commission for Erbil Citadel Revitalization in Erbil, Iraq, and UCL Qatar at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Meroe in Sudan.
Rebecca has often lived ‘on the ground’ during times of conflict and upheaval, such as the revolution in Nepal in 2006; numerous protests in Khartoum, Sudan, since 2013; the Arab Spring era in Cairo, Egypt, in 2011-14; the revolution in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2014; and the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar in 2017-18.
She has also achieved a number of firsts:
In early 2012 Rebecca was one of three people to co-direct the first archaeological excavations at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Erbil Citadel in Iraqi Kurdistan, which seems to be the longest continuously inhabited site in the world at 6,000 years old.
In the same year she led the first tours around Iraqi Kurdistan for Steppes Travel, taking groups around the Zagros Mountains, from the Yezidi temples at Lalish to Saddam Hussein’s ruined palaces and former detention centres.
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Rebecca is currently Assistant Professor of Tourism and Cultural Heritage at the United Arab Emirates University.
From 2019-2020, Rebecca completed consultancies with Small Arms Survey and Chemonics International, where she helped produce research on weapons flows and armed conflict in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
In her spare time, Rebecca works as a contributor to the online Middle East news outlet, Al-Monitor, and as a TV broadcaster, most recently for PBS America, The Discovery Channel, and Channel 5.
She is also involved in a number of projects, such as an Iran project with the Royal Anthropological Institute, and also holds posts such as Committee Member of the Society for Study of the Sudans UK (SSSUK).
Top image: Rebecca was invited by the UK Department of Trade and Investment to present a talk on tourism in Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo credit: Sebastian Meyer
© 2006-21 Rebecca Bradshaw. All rights reserved, except where stated otherwise.
