Middle East | corruption | defense industry | arms sales  ​ Shana Marshall is Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Faculty member at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She is an active member of several research collectives and projects, including the Middle East Research & Information Project, the Political Economy Project, and Security in Context. Her current research focuses on the role of venture capital and private equity in driving expanded weapons development, as well as the growth of domestic military industries in the Arab states. Prior to coming to George Washington University, Marshall was a research fellow at The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.