Born and raised in Hawai’i, Gwen Griffith-Dickson has lived in London since 1981. A renowned professor, author and speaker, she has become a reluctant expert in religious extremism and counter-terrorism, particularly concerned to support and empower communities. She advised and created programmes for the British Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, for Counter-Terrorist Command Special Operations, and for the USA’s National Counter-Terrorism Center and Department of Homeland Security.

Griffith-Dickson is the founder and director of the Lokahi Foundation, an independent research organisation and social impact charity. Lokahi’s mission is to enable society to embrace religious diversity with respect and understanding. One of its nationwide programmes built common ground between police and Muslim communities, and was the only community programme in Britain to prevent a terrorist attack.

She developed and ran Britain’s largest continuing education programme in Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Theology and Philosophy at the University of London, Birkbeck College. The first woman to hold the Gresham Chair in Divinity in 2001 at Gresham College, she was appointed a Gresham Fellow. She also served as Vice-Principal of Heythrop College, University of London, and is currently Visiting Professor at King’s College, London.

Griffith-Dickson drew on the knowledge gained from fifteen years of research and practice in counter-terrorism, ethnic and religious minorities and the interfaith philosophy of religion when writing Bleedback. In her spare time, she enjoys classical singing, Russian martial arts and Hawai’ian hula.