Thomas Schmidinger, PhD

Overview

Thomas Schmidinger is a political scientist and social and cultural anthropologist. He teaches at the University of Vienna and is currently a lecturer at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (UKH). He is co-editor of the Vienna Yearbook for Kurdish Studies and has published several books on Syria, Iraq, Sudan, among others, most recently 2022 “The World Has Forgotten Us. Sinjar and the Islamic State’s Genocide of the Yezidis”.

Education

• - 1988 - 1993: Rankweil School of Higher Technical Education / Institute for Communications Engineering
• - 1995 – 2003: University of Vienna / MA in political science; social and cultural anthropology
• - Since 2005: Language courses in Russian, Persian, Albanian, Serbo-Croatian and Kurdish
• - 2007/2008: University didactics curriculum: “The Art of Teaching”
• - 2014: PhD in Political Science, University of Vienna

Professional Qualification

• - 2002 – 2004: Research coordination for the exhibition “Gastarbajteri” (40 years of work migration) for the Museum of Vienna's “Minority Initiative” project
• - Since 2004: Lecturer at the University of Vienna's Institute for Political Science
• - November 2004 – March 2007: Mobile refugee custodian for Caritas in Wiener Neustadt
• - January – April 2007: Member of the integration steering committee for Caritas in Wiener Neustadt
• - April 2007 – January 2009: Coordination of a scientific evaluation project on Caritas' work with refugees in a Lower Austria industrial zone
• - January – October 2009: Director of the department of Integration (migrants/refugees)
• - 2010/2011: Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota (USA)
• - Since October 2011: Lecturer at the University of Vienna
• - 2011-2018: Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg (Dornbirn)
• - Since 2016: Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Oberösterreich (Linz)
• - 2016-2017 and 2020-2021: Research Fellow at the Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology
• - Since 2017: Researcher in different research projects on Muslim communities and jihadist radicalisation for different governmental and non-governmental institutions
• - 2014-2019: Advisor of MEP Josef Weidenholzer in the European Parliament on Kurdistan/Iraq/Syria
• - Since 2019: Advisor of two Austrian Members of the European Parliament on Kurdistan/Iraq/Syria, Research Projects
• - 2022/23: Visiting Professor at the University of Kurdistan Hawlêr