User:LauraTrusten/sandbox/Jason Blazakis

Jason Blazakis is an American academic. His areas of specialization include terrorism sanctions, violent extremism, state sponsors of terrorism, and preventing terrorism financing.

Blazakis' great-uncle, Spiro Blazakis, was considered an outlaw for fighting against Nazis and later fighting on the side of Communists during the Greek Civil War. In 1975, the views of the government changed in regard to Spiros's actions.

Blazakis teaches courses on terrorism financing, the rise of the Islamic State, and an introduction to terrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). Blazakis is also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, College Park and a Senior Fellow at the Soufan Center. In addition to teaching, he serves as the director of MIIS’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC), a program that conducts in-depth research on domestic terrorism, terrorism finance, recruitment, propaganda, and the use of special operations to counter transnational threats.

Articles have been written about Blazakis in Greece and Nepal. Kathimerini and Khabarhub, a Nepali news agency, wrote about Blazakis and his work in the field of counter-terrorism.

Education
In 1997, Blazakis graduated from the University of Mississippi with a BA in political science and government and in 2001, from the Johns Hopkins University with a MA in political science and government. In 2003 he completed an MA in International Relations and National Security Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Career
From 2003 to 2004, Blazakis served as a domestic intelligence analyst at the Congressional Research Service.

From 2008 until 2018 he served as the director of the Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, responsible for directing efforts to designate countries, organizations, and individuals as terrorists, otherwise known as state sponsors of terrorism, foreign terrorist organizations, and specially designated global terrorists. Blazakis also held positions in the Department of State’s Political-Military Affairs, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Intelligence and Research Bureaus, and at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Blazakis was the recipient of the Superior Honor Award, Meritorious Honor Award, and the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy while working at the State Department. While working at the State Department, Blazakis taught evening courses at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 2017, State Magazine wrote about Blazakis and how he led a U.S. delegation to meet with counterparts from the Government of India. This event was the first-ever formal exchange between the U.S. and India on terrorist designations issues.

Blazakis also served as the national security adviser to a United States Congressional Representative and worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technology Administration.

In 2019, Blazakis traveled to Bhutan to speak at a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime hosted meeting about terrorism and proliferation financing issues and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267, and at a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime conference in Mongolia. His presentation focused on countering the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors. He trained authorities in Seychelles about counter proliferation financing at a course provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He also presented on Open Source Investigative Techniques at a separate workshop convened by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The workshop, titled "Regional Workshop for South-Eastern Europe on Foreign Terrorist Fighters' Cases. Manual for Judicial Training Institutes," discussed methods to counter the threat posed by returning foreign terrorist fighters.

In 2019, Blazakis joined the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. In 2020, Blazakis spoke about the US, UK, and EU systems of terrorist designations at Boston University School of Law's Counter-Terrorist Financing workshop. The workshop was for the government of Qatar and private sector Qatar officials.

Teaching
Blazakis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Senior Fellow at the Soufan Center. Since 2018, Blazakis has served as the Director of MIIS’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC).