Martha Crenshaw

Martha Crenshaw, born September 2, 1945, is an American political scientist who has served as a professor of political science at Stanford University since 2007, after holding the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professorship of Global Issues and Democratic Thought at Wesleyan University from 1987 to 2007. She earned her bachelor's degree from Newcomb College at Tulane University in 1967 and her doctorate from the University of Virginia's Department of Government in 1973. Crenshaw is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern terrorism studies, alongside scholars such as Paul Wilkinson and Bruce Hoffman, examining the causes, processes and consequences of terrorist violence across decades of research; she coordinated a working group on the political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2015.