Nukhet Sandal earned her Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from University of Southern California in 2010, and she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University from 2010-13, co-directing a project on Religion and Internationalism.

Sandal is originally from Turkey. She has worked in multiple conflict settings and published articles on foreign policy, ethnic conflict and religion and global politics in prestigious journals including the European Journal of International Relations, International Politics, Review of International Studies, Alternatives, Political Studies, West European Politics, Human Rights Quarterly and Canadian Journal of Political Science.

Sandal is the author of "Religious Leaders and Conflict Transformation" (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and "Religion and International Relations Theory" (with Jonathan Fox; Routledge, 2013). She served as the chair of the Religion and International Relations Section of the International Studies Association (2016-18), and as the chair of the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Section (2015-17). She is the co-editor of Human Security Series of Ohio University Press, and currently serving on the executive committee of the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association.