Leila Simona Talani is Professor (Chair) of International Political Economy in the European and International Studies Department at King's College London, UK. She was appointed Jean Monnet Chair of European Political Economy in 2012. Previously she held the position of Associate Expert for the United Nations Regional Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Cairo, Egypt, working on illegal migration from the Middle East and North Africa to EU countries. She is the author of The Arab Spring in the Global Political Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Dirty Cities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), European Political Economy (2013), Globalisation, Migration, and the Future of Europe (2011), and From Egypt to Europe (2010), among other titles.