Daniel Pipes is a distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, a columnist for newspapers including The New York Sun, Jerusalem Post and L'Opinione and the director of the Middle East Forum, which seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East. Pipes received his bachelor and doctoral degrees, both in history, at Harvard University, and he spent three of his six years studying abroad in Egypt.

Over the last several years, Pipes has spoken against what he says are the dangers of radical Islam and the threat it poses to America. On Jan. 31, Pipes said at a women Republicans' meeting in Malibu, CA that the solution to the spread of Islamic radicalism in America is to court moderate Muslims and to promote a version of moderate Islam, according to The Malibu Times.

He also said in Malibu that he worries "about a leading radical Islamist thinker or scholar coming to [Los Angeles]."

Pipes has written 12 books, mostly concerning Islam, the Middle East and Syria.

-Michael Grillo