Faculty
Thomas Gift
Dr. Thomas Gift is Associate Professor in the UCL Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy. As founding Director of the UCL Centre on US Politics (CUSP), he has led extensive scholarship and public engagement analyzing US politics and America’s role in the world. He has written widely on political behavior, public policy, and applications of survey and experimental methods.
Gift’s writings have appeared in journals including Political Behavior, Political Science Research and Methods, Electoral Studies, Journal of Experimental Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, American Politics Research, Governance, Research & Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Global Security Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, World Affairs, Political Insight, Annual Review of Political Science, and elsewhere. He is the author of the book Killing Machines: Trump, the Law of War and the Future of Military Impunity (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). His work has been supported by funding bodies such as the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of State, the British Academy, and the British Association for American Studies.
At UCL, Gift teaches modules on American Government, Public Policy Economics and Analysis, and the UCL “signature course” Disagreeing Well, which seeks to facilitate civil discourse on key political, civic, and social controversies. He also teaches an annual summer class at Harvard on the Political Economy of Globalization.
Gift frequently offers expert analysis on US politics and policy. He has made more than 1,000 television, radio, and news appearances and has penned over 170 articles for leading popular publications. His writing, commentary, and research have featured in outlets including Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, POLITICO, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Vox, The National Interest, Le Monde, War on the Rocks, The Hill, Associated Press, CNN, BBC, NBC News, CNBC, NPR, Bloomberg, and Voice of America. Gift has served as the main in-studio guest for ‘round-the-clock BBC World Service “America Decides” election-night coverage. He has provided assessments of US politics for organizations including the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, think tanks, and private wealth and financial advisories.
Previously, Gift was based at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he won a prize for distinction in undergraduate teaching in the College. He has held fellowships or visiting appointments at Stanford’s Political Science Department, Yale’s Center for the Study of American Politics, Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute, and the London School of Economics US Centre. Prior to academia, Gift worked at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC. He holds a PhD in political science from Duke University, where he was a National Science Foundation fellow.
Dr. Gift can be booked for public or private speaking engagements through the Academic Speakers Bureau.
| Office | UCL School of Public Policy G.04, 31 Tavistock Square, London, UK WC1H 9QU |
| [email protected] | |
Julie Norman
Dr. Julie Norman is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in Politics and International Relations at University College London (UCL), where she is a leading public educator on conflict, political violence, and the Middle East. She is also the Director of UCL’s Israel-Palestine Initiative (IPI), and she is a Senior Associate Fellow on International Security and the Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Norman is the author of multiple books on conflict and divided societies, including Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare (Polity 2025), and Understanding Nonviolence (Polity 2015). She has published numerous articles in academic journals including Perspectives on Politics, Political Psychology, Security Dialogue, Journal of Global Security Studies, Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, and PS: Politics & Political Science, and her research has been supported by the British Academy, the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC).
Norman also has extensive practitioner experience, having worked as a researcher with the British Council in Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Lebanon, and as a trainer with NGOs in Egypt and Israel-Palestine. She also led a multi-year project on “Conflict Sensitivity and Community Resilience in Conflict Zones” with the international NGO Christian Aid in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Myanmar.
Norman has provided expert analysis to the US State Department, the US Institute of Peace (USIP), the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), and other national and international agencies. She is a frequent commentator on the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, and other international networks, and her insights have been featured in the Washington Post, The Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Hill, Newsweek, The Conversation, Associated Press, and many other public-facing outlets.
Norman holds a PhD in International Relations from American University in Washington, DC, with concentrations in Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, and a BA from Duke University. She was previously a Lecturer in Politics at McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and she has held fellowships at the University of Notre Dame, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Dartmouth College, and MIT.
| Office | UCL School of Public Policy, 36-38 Gordon Sq., G.04, London, UK WC1H 9QU |
| [email protected] | |