Vera Mironova, PhD, is an Associate Fellow at Harvard University and is famous for her extensive in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with armed groups in active conflict zones, terrorist sleeping cells, and criminal organizations. She conducted fieldwork in numerous active conflict zones and post-conflict regions all over the world including in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, DRC Congo, and Azerbaijan. From 2016 to 2017, she was embedded with Iraqi Special Operations Forces during the Mosul Operation and before that, with ultra-right Ukrainian armed groups in Donbas. And since 2018 she conducted extensive interviews with members of criminal organizations in former Soviet Union. She is an author of the award-winning book From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists. Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups (Oxford 2019).