Sherif Amin is a final year PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London, focusing his research on the rise of Russian influence in the Middle East through a US foreign policy perspective. Before his PhD, Sherif graduated from Queen Mary, University of London, with an MRes in International Relations with a focus on the normalisation between the UAE and Israel. Prior to the MRes, Sherif served as a research assistant at the Middle East Institute and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He also has a BA in Political Science from Michigan State University and an MSc from SOAS.