Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu is a lecturer and Content Editor of Maydan (www.themaydan.com) with the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Tekelioglu holds a PhD in Political Science from Boston University and a Masters in International Relations from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. His research focuses on American religious landscape, politics of ethno-religious identities, Muslim minorities in the West, and international relations theories. His doctoral work examined contemporary debates about American Muslim identity and transnational belonging among American Muslim communities in Boston, San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Tekelioglu is concurrently the education and outreach director at CAIR-Philadelphia.From 2013 to 2015 Ahmet Selim directed the Los Angeles leg of the Public Ethics and Citizenship in Plural Societies Project with Contending Modernities program at Notre Dame University. He previously held research and teaching appointments with Institute on Religion, Culture and World Affairs (CURA) and Frederick S Pardee Center for the Study of Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Boston University Department of Political Science, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria, Diyanet Islamic Research Institute, SETA Foundation and Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.