Visiting Professor, LSE Ideas at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Former Co-Director, Global Cyber Capacity Centre, University of Oxford
Professor Paul Cornish is an independent analyst and author. His published work covers contemporary international security and cyber security. He is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security, published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
Professor Paul Cornish has held a range of academic and research appointments in the course of his career. He was Associate Director of the Global Cyber Security Centre at the University of Oxford from 2013-18. Until December 2014, he was a Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Exeter and formerly the inaugural Carrington Professor of International Security at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). While at Chatham House, he developed and led the institute’s highly successful cybersecurity policy research program. He was a Professor of International Security at the University of Bath, a Lecturer in Defense Studies at the UK Defense Academy (King’s College London), and then a Lecturer in International Security at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Cornish also spent several years as Director of the Centre for Defense Studies at King’s College London. He was educated at the University of St Andrews (MA Hons, Modern History) and the London School of Economics (MSc Econ, International Relations).
He then trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and spent six years in the British Army in the 1980s, serving as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment. After completing his Ph.D. – an assessment of British strategic thought in the early years of the Cold War – at the University of Cambridge, Professor Cornish spent two years as an arms control analyst in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Paul has traveled widely, including fieldwork in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, has contributed to several Parliamentary inquiries, and is a frequent commentator in national and international media.
