Oren Barak is the Maurice B. Hexter Chair in International Relations – Middle East Studies and  professor of political science. He was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and a Visiting Professor at Cornell University and the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Lebanese Army: A National Institution in a Divided Society (State University of New York Press, 2009), Israel's Security Networks: A Theoretical and Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2013, with Gabriel Sheffer), and State Expansion and Conflict: In and between Israel/Palestine and Lebanon (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He is currently writing a book on popular culture and conflict & peace.