J. Mac Skelton is Executive Director of the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) and a Research Fellow at King's College London. Trained as an anthropologist, he has conducted fieldwork and led research teams in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. His recent academic work has explored the long-term impacts of conflict on health and healthcare infrastructure in Iraq and the broader contemporary Middle East. He has also directed donor-funded studies on conflict systems, humanitarian policy, and displacement. Skelton is a contributor to the Brown University Costs of War Project, and he recently held a visiting fellowship at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University.

Peer Reviewed

• Establishing a Lancet Oncology Commission on the humanitarian crisis of cancer. The Lancet Oncology 24, no. 8 (2023): 835-837. August 2023.
• War and Oncology: cancer care in five Iraqi provinces impacted by the ISIL conflict. Frontiers in Oncology. Vol. 13. May 2023.
• High-Cost Cancer Treatment Across Borders in Conflict Zones: Experience of Iraqi Patients in Lebanon. Journal of Global Oncology, 6, 59-66. January 2020.
• "Iraqis’ Cancer Itineraries: War, Therapeutic Geographies, and Displacement" in War & Health: The Medical Consequences of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. eds. Catherine Lutz and Andrea Mazzarino. NYU Press. November 2019. 
• Analysis of social science research into cancer care in low-and middle-income countries: improving global cancer control through greater interdisciplinary research. Journal of global oncology, 4, 1-9.
• Oncology in Iraq’s Kurdish Region: Navigating War, Displacement and Cancer. Journal of Global Oncology. April 2017. 
• Changing Therapeutic Geographies of the Iraq and Syrian Wars, The Lancet, February 2014.
   

Policy Publications

• Climate Adaption Key to Iraq’s Stability and Economic Development. United States Institute of Peace. November 2023.
• Iraq’s Climate Change Agenda Must Prioritize Health—for Humans, Animals, and Plants. The Century Foundation. August 2023.
• Competing over the Tigris: The Politics of Water Governance in Iraq. IRIS. November 2022. 
• Medicine Under Fire: How Corruption Erodes Healthcare in Iraq. KAS. December 2021. 
• Displacement and Iraq's Political Marketplace: Addressing Political Barriers to IDP Return. IRIS. February 2021.
• The Long Shadow of Iraq’s Cancer Epidemic and COVID-19. MERIP 2020
• Iraq's Political Marketplace at the Subnational Level: The Struggle for Power in Three Provinces. Conflict Research Programme, London School of Economics and Political Science. June 2020.  
• COVID-19: Assessing Vulnerabilities and Impact on Iraq. The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). April 2020. 
• Why Iraq’s Protestors Won’t Go Home: 10 Voices from the Movement. London School of Economics. Middle East Centre. March 2020.
• Protests and Power: Lessons from Iraqi Kurdistan's Opposition Movement. London School of Economics. Middle East Centre. November 2019. 
• The Kurdish Duopoly: The Political Economy of Two-Party Rule. London School of Economics. Middle East Centre. September 2019. 
• The Bishop and the Prime Minister: Mediating Conflict in the Nineveh Plains. London School of Economics. Middle East Centre blog. January 2019.