Dr. Nawaf Obaid is a political scientist specialising in intelligence, security studies, the history of war, defence doctrines and nuclear posturing. He is a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London and Founder and Managing Director of Project AURORAH GeoSignal MASINT System. From 2004 to 2007 he was Special Advisor for Strategic Communications to Prince Turki Al Faisal during his tenure as Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, and later to the United States. From 2007 to 2011 he served as a Special Advisor in the Presidency of Citizens Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, including a secondment as Special Advisor to the Saudi Minister of Media from 2010 to 2011. From 2011 to 2016 he was Counselor to Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
At Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, he was a Visiting Fellow from 2012 to 2017 and then the Center’s inaugural Visiting Fellow for Intelligence and Defence Projects from 2017 to 2018. He has also been a Research Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a Senior Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.