MonTREP Faculty and Staff Bios

Fred L. Wehling, Ph.D.
Prof. Wehling is Research Director of MonTREP and Associate Professor in the Graduate School of International Policy Studies (GSIPS) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Wehling received his A.B. in International Relations, Political Science, and Russian from the University of Southern California in 1985, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987, a Ph.D. in Political Science, from UCLA in 1992, and a Masters of Instructional Science and Technology from California State University Monterey Bay in 2006. In addition to teaching, Wehling manages the MonTREP research program, develops online courses and instructional materials, and conducts research in nuclear material security. He is co-author of The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (Routledge, 2005) and World Politics in a New Era, 3rd ed. (Wadsworth, 2003) and author of various articles and reports on nuclear nonproliferation and the prevention of and response to terrorist incidents involving nuclear and radiological materials.

Jeffrey M. Bale, Ph.D.
Dr. Bale has studied terrorist and extremist groups of various kinds for over two decades, and is currently a Senior Researcher at MonTREP and an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of International Policy Studies at MIIS. He obtained his B.A. in Middle Eastern and Central Asian history at the University of Michigan, his M.A. in social movements and political sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in modern European history at Berkeley. He has taught at Berkeley, Columbia University, and the University of California at Irvine, and was the recipient of postdoctoral fellowships from the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia, the Office of Scholarly Programs at the Library of Congress, and the Center for German and European Studies at Berkeley. He has published numerous articles on terrorism, right-wing extremism, religious cults, and covert operations, is in the process of updating a huge book manuscript dealing with neo-fascist terrorist networks in Europe, and is currently preparing monographic studies on a) Islamist networks operating in Europe and North America, and b) the potential for collaboration between Western left- and right-wing radicals and Islamist terrorists. At the Monterey Institute, he teaches introductory level and seminar courses on terrorism, political and religious extremism, and militant Islamic organizations.

Sundara Vadlamudi
Mr. Vadlamudi is a Research Associate at MonTREP with a joint appointment at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He directs research, provides day-to-day maintenance, and performs qualitative review of the WMD Terrorism Database. His research interests include terrorism and Islamic extremism in South Asia and WMD proliferation in South Asia. He obtained his B.E. in Computer Science from Thiagarajar College of Engineering in India, and his M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies with a certificate in Nonproliferation. His recent publications include chapters on the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yusuf (with Gary Ackerman) in Countering Terrorism in the 21st Century (2007); an entry on "Syria" (with Markus Binder) in Richard Pilch and Raymond Zilinskas, eds., Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense (2005); and "Indo-U.S. Space Cooperation: Poised for Take-Off?," The Nonproliferation Review (March 2005). He has also co-authored several unpublished reports on terrorism.

Markus Binder
Mr. Binder is a Research Associate at MonTREP and Deputy Director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program (CBWNP) at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Prior to joining the Monterey Institute in February 2004, he spent fifteen months working with the External Relations Division of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. Mr. Binder received his Bachelors degree in Political Studies, History, and the Chinese Language, and his M.A. in Political Studies (with a focus on revolutions, insurgencies and counter-hegemonic movements, as well as on security and diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific) from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His academic background includes past studies in the fields of Asia-Pacific security, ethnic conflict, revolutions and insurgencies, international security, nuclear proliferation, arms control, chemical weapons proliferation and disarmament, and terrorism.