Dr Benafsha Askarzai is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She holds a PhD in Criminal Justice from QUT and was nominated for Outstanding Thesis Award. Dr Askarzai is a violent extremism researcher and specialises in narrative and discourse analysis, radicalisation, and threat assessment. Her research examines how extremist actors construct and justify violence through narrative, with a particular focus on the neutralisation techniques used to frame harm as legitimate within right-wing extremist movements in Australia. 

Her work has been published in the Australian Journal of Politics & History, including a contribution selected for a virtual special issue commissioned in response to the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, and she has further research under review examining narrative framing and online mobilisation in extremist discourse. 

Dr Askarzai maintains an active research portfolio in the areas of extremism, counterterrorism, and intelligence analysis, and her work has informed invited talks to intelligence, government, and community audiences on right-wing extremism, women in intelligence, and social cohesion.