Mia Bloom

Mia Bloom

Mia M. Bloom (born 1968) is the author of Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, a critically acclaimed study on suicide terrorism and Bombshell: Women and Terrorism .

Bloom is currently an associate professor of women's studies and international studies at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA and a fellow at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State. Previously she was an assistant professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.

With research specialties in ethnic conflict, rape in war, and child soldiers, Bloom was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2003-2008. Bloom is known for her work on suicide terrorism, women and terrorism, the growing phenomenon of child terrorists, the radicalization of Muslims in Europe and America, and the role of women in"the Troubles" in Northern Ireland.

Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a Masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelors from McGill University in Russian and Middle East Studies. She completed a year in the overseas program at Tel Aviv University and a semester at the Arab Language Institute (ALI) at the American University of Cairo. She has held research or teaching appointments at Rutgers, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and McGill Universities and speaks eight languages. She regularly appears on Fox News, CNN, CSPAN, CBC and CTV and has been interviewed by Jim Lehrer for PBS, Ted Koppel for Nightline, and Jesse Pearson for MTV. Bloom analyzed the changing role of women and terrorism in a TEDxPSU talk in December 2011 .

Bombshell is published by Penguin (Canada) and in the US by the University of Pennsylvania Press and in the UK by Hurst. She is writing a book on the deliberate use of Rape during War tentatively called "Gendercide: the Strategic Logic of Rape During War" and articles on the growing exploitation of children by terrorist networks.