Researcher
Dr Julia Ebner is an academic known for her research in the fields of radicalisation, extremism and terrorism prevention.
She is currently the Leader of the Violent Extremism Lab at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion and a postdoctoral researcher at the Calleva Centre for Evolution and Human Science at Magdalen College, Oxford. She furthermore teaches at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford. Julia completed her DPhil in Anthropology at the University of Oxford as a fully funded ESRC DTP Scholar and a St John’s College Alumni Fund Scholar. Her DPhil research was a finalist for the ESRC Impact Prize 2023 and won the MRS President’s Medal 2023.
Julia holds an MSc (Dist) in International History from the London School of Economics and an MSc (Dist) in International Relations from Peking University. She completed her undergraduate studies with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and a BSc in International Business. Julia is fluent in English, German and French and has intermediate Spanish and Mandarin skills.
Research Awards
Winner of the Austrian of the Year 2024 award by die Presse and the Austrian Foreign Ministry
Winner of the Open Society Prize 2024 by the Central European University
Finalist for the ESRC Impact Prize 2023 by the British Economic and Social Research Council
Winner of the MRS President’s Medal 2023 (with Chris Kavanagh and Harvey Whitehouse)
Winner of the Dr Caspar Einem Prize 2022
Winner of the Science Book of the Year Award 2020 (Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2020)
Winner of the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book of the Year 2018
Research Grants
Calleva Centre of Evolution and Human Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024-2026), University of Oxford
Airey Neave Trust Fellowship (2024-2026), University of Oxford
British Academy Talent Development Award (2024-2025), University of Oxford (with Harvey Whitehouse)
ESRC Full DTP Scholarship (2019-2023), University of Oxford
St John’s College Alumni Fund Scholarship (2019-2023), University of Oxford
Co-Investigator on a research project funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (2019-2020), Institute for Strategic Dialogue
Full Chinese Government Scholarship (2013-2014), Peking University
Scholarship of Academic Excellence (2010-2013), Vienna University
Scholarship of Academic Excellence (2010-2013), Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
ESRC Impact Prize finalist
Teaching Experience
International Security and Conflict paper, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford (2023/24, 2024/25)
International Relations paper, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford (2024/25 )
Tutor
London School of Economics/ Polis Summer School (2024), Cambridge University/ Social Psychology Department (2024), Western Illinois University / School of Law Enforcement (2024), University of Copenhagen/ SMIDGE Horizon Europe Project (2024), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/ Faculty of Religion and Theology (2024), University of Oxford/ Calleva Lecture at Magdalen College (2024), University of St Andrews/ Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (2024), Vienna University of Medicine / Department of Psychiatry (2024), Nanjang Technological University Singapore/ S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (2023), UC Berkeley/ Social Science Matrix (2022), Exeter University/Centre of Advanced International Studies (2022), Vienna University /Wiener Vorlesungen (2021), Johns Hopkins University/ Arena Initiative (2020, 2021), King’s College London/ War Studies Department (2020), Leiden University / Institute of Security and Global Affairs (2020), University of California Los Angeles/ European Languages and Transcultural Studies (2018), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / Department of Communications (2018), University of Southern California / Sol Price School of Public Policy (2018), Massachusetts Institute of Technology /Civic Media Lab (2018)
Guest Lecturer
Supervisor
Supervision of research assistants and DPhil students at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford (2023-ongoing)
Curriculum development for the far-right extremism course at NATO School Oberammergau (2020)
Teaching tour through Saxony (Germany) organised by Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (Nov 2018)
Part-time teacher at high schools in Beijing (Sept 2013 - June 2014)
Other
Selected Publications
Ebner, Julia, The Language of Terrorists: Distinguishing Trolls from Violent Extremists (N.Y.: Columbia UP) – forthcoming 2024.
Ebner, Julia, Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over (London: Ithaka Press/Bonnier Books, 2023) – translated into three languages.
Ebner, Julia, Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists (London: Bloomsbury, 2020) – translated into seven languages.
Ebner, Julia, The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) – translated into three languages.
Monographs
The Rage, Going Dark and Going Mainstream, Review by Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism XVIII (3), September 2024, pp. 223-225.
Going Dark, Review by Owen P. O’Sullivan & Luke A. Reilly, Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology 33 (6), 2022, pp. 900-902.
Going Dark, Review by Nicola Macaulay, National Security Journal, April 2021, pp. 1-3.
Going Dark, Review by Thomas Klikauer, Terrorism and Political Violence 32 (5), June 2020, pp. 1115-1118.
Reviews of Monographs
Ebner, Julia and Jakob Guhl, “Extremism and conspiracy myths on social media” in The Routledge Handbook of Conflict and Peace Communication (Abington: Routledge, 2024).
Ebner, Julia and Harvey Whitehouse, “Identity and Extremism: Sorting out the causal pathways to radicalization and violent self-sacrifice”, The Routledge Handbook on Radicalization and Countering Radicalization (Abington: Routledge, 2023).
Ebner, Julia, “Verschwörungstheorien – Was Corona mit unserer Gesellschaft macht“ in Corona Stories (Berlin: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2020).
Ebner, Julia, “Countering (Post-)Digital Hate: What Can Civil Society Do?” in Fielitz, Maik and Nick Thurston (eds), Back to Front Truths: Opposing the Post Digital Cultures of the Far-Right (Columbia University Press, 2019).
Crawford, Justin, Ebner Julia and Usama Hasan, “The Balanced Nation: Addressing the Challenges of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism in the Classroom” in (eds.) Panjwani, F. et al., Education and Extremisms (Abington: Routledge, 2018).
Book Chapters
Ebner, J. & Whitehouse, H. (Submitted), “The Role of Identity Fusion and Threat in the Interplay of National and Local-Level Mass Violence and Genocide”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Special Issue on Cumulative Radicalisation - forthcoming.
Kristinsdottir, K., Ebner, J. & Whitehouse, H. (Submitted), “Extreme Overvalued Beliefs and Identities: Revisiting the Drivers of Grievance-Fuelled Lone-Actor Violence”.
Ebner, Julia, Christopher Kavanagh and Harvey Whitehouse, “Assessing Violence Risk among Far-Right Extremists: A New Role for Natural Language Processing”, Terrorism and Political Violence, July 2023.
Ebner, Julia, Christopher Kavanagh and Harvey Whitehouse, “Measuring Socio-Psychological Drivers of Extreme Violence in Online Terrorist Manifestos: An Alternative Linguistic Risk Assessment Model”, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, August 2023.
Ebner, Julia, Christopher Kavanagh and Harvey Whitehouse, “The QAnon Security Threat: A Linguistic Fusion-Based Violence Risk Assessment”, Perspectives on Terrorism, Special Issue on Anti-Government Extremism, December 2022.
Ebner, Julia, Christopher Kavanagh and Harvey Whitehouse, “Is There a Language of Terrorists? A Comparative Manifesto Analysis, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, August 2022.
Ebner, Julia, “Replatforming Unreality”, MIT Journal of Design and Science, Issue 6: Unreal, September 2019.
Ebner, Julia, “The Sino-European Race for Africa’s Minerals: When Two Quarrel A Third Rejoices”, Resources Policy Vol. 43, March 2015.
Journal Articles
Ebner, Julia. “Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) in the metaverse: the future of extremist organisation?”, Project Immersive Democracy, European Metaverse Research Network, September 2023.
Busher, Joel, Gareth Harris, Julia Ebner at al. “The Dynamics of Violence Escalation and Inhibition during 'Hot Periods' of Anti-Minority and Far-Right Activism “, Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), February 2022.
Guhl, Jakob, Julia Ebner and Jan Rau. “The Online Ecosystem of the German Far-Right”, Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Robert Bosch Foundation, February 2020.
Davey, Jacob and Julia Ebner. “The Great Replacement: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism”, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, July 2019.
Ebner, Julia and Jacob Davey. “How Women Advance the Internationalization of the Far-Right”, George Washington University, Program on Extremism, February 2019.
Fielitz, Maik, Julia Ebner, et al. “Loving Hate: Anti-Muslim Extremism, Radical Islamism and the Spiral of Polarization”, Institute for Democracy and Civil Society and Institute for Strategic Dialogue, June 2018.
Baldauf, Johannes, Julia Ebner and Jakob Guhl (eds). "Hate Speech and Radicalisation Online: The OCCI Research Report“, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, September 2018.
Kreißel, Philip, Julia Ebner, et al. "Hate at the Push of a Button: Right-Wing troll factories and the ecosystem of coordinated hate campaigns online“, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, July 2018.
Ebner, Julia and Jacob Davey. "Mainstreaming Mussolini: How the Extreme Right Attempted to ‘Make Italy Great Again’ in the 2018 Italian Election", Institute for Strategic Dialogue, March 2018.
Davey, Jacob and Julia Ebner, "The Fringe Insurgency. Connectivity, Convergence and Mainstreaming of the Extreme Right", Institute for Strategic Dialogue, October 2017.
Ebner, Julia und Leah Selig Chauhan. “Families Succeed Where Weapons and Security Fail”, Centre for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), MENA Office of The World Bank, May 2017.
Young, Holly, Julia Ebner, et al. “Evidence-Based Policy Advice”, Terrorism and Radicalisation (TERRA), European Commission, July 2016.
Nawaz, Maajid and Julia Ebner. “The EU and Terrorism: Is the UK Safer in or Out?”, The EU in A Changing Europe, King’s College London, May 2016.
Reports and Policy Briefings
Research enquiries
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