Steven Emerson is considered one of the leading authorities on Islamist extremist networks, financing and operations as well national security and intelligence. Since 1995, he has been the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit organization that maintains one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamist and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. 

Emerson and his staff have frequently provided briefings to U.S. government, law enforcement agencies and Congress;  published hundreds of articles in print and electronic media on terrorist financing and operational networks of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and especially in the last two decades focusing on the radical Islamist groups in the U.S that originated from the Muslin Brotherhood such as CAIR, ICNA, AMP, ISNA, MSA,  IAP, MAS, and the rest of the Islamist militant spectrum. 

Emerson launched The Investigative Project on Terrorism in 1995, following the November 1994 broadcast of his documentary film, “Jihad in America,” on PBS. The film exposed clandestine operations of militant Islamic terrorist groups on American soil. For the film, Emerson received numerous awards including the George Polk Award, one of the most prestigious awards in journalism, for Television Documentary in 1994. Nearly every one of the terrorist suspects and groups first identified in his 1994 film have been indicted, convicted, or deported since 9-11. The documentary was also featured on 60 Minutes. 

In 2013, he produced a documentary called “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception”   which was an expose of the covert infrastructure and influence of militant Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in the US. He is also the author or co-author of six books on terrorism and national security.

Emerson is one of the first terrorism investigators to have testified and warned about the threat of Islamic militant networks operating in the United States and their connections worldwide. 

Prior to his production of Jihad in America, Emerson worked at CNN and US News and World Report. He also freelanced for the New York Times Magazine and the New Republic. He has a BA and MA from Brown University and once ran a marathon in 2 hours and 59 minutes, a feat he was never able to repeat again.