Julia Gurol is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Chair for International Relations at Freiburg University. Her dissertation dealt with European-Chinese security relations in the Middle East. Julia’s areas of expertise are transregional authoritarian practices, infrastructure studies, strategic questions of foreign and security policy, political transformation as well as peace and conflict studies; her regional foci are China and the Middle East (with a particular focus on the Gulf region). She has previously worked in a project on arms export control at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). Furthermore, she is a trained crossmedial journalist and has published in several German media, such as WirtschaftsWoche, Handelsblatt and WDR.

Julia holds a PhD from the University of Freiburg, an MA in Political Science from the University of Bonn and a BA degree in Politics, Sociology and Media Studies from the University of Düsseldorf.