Fatima Abo Alasrar

Fatima Abo Alasrar is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Insititute. She is the founder of the Ideology Machine, a publication on authoritarian information systems. She is a scholar specializing in Yemen’s conflict dynamics, the Houthi movement, Iranian-aligned networks, and Gulf security.

Her work examines the intersection of ideology, conflict, and great-power competition, with particular attention to how Iranian-aligned movements interact with broader geopolitical currents across the Middle East. Previously, Alasrar was a senior analyst at the Arabia Foundation in Washington, DC, the MENA director for Cure Violence, and a research associate at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. She has been a Mason Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and an International Policy Fellow at the Open Society Foundations.

From 2006 to 2012, Alasrar worked as an advisor for the Embassy of Yemen in Washington, DC. Earlier in her career, she worked at the British Embassy and served as a program officer for the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development in Yemen.

Alasrar holds an MA in public administration from Harvard University, an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University, and a BS in architectural engineering from Sana’a University in Yemen.