Waleed Aly is a 21st century renaissance man; as versatile as it gets. He’s a lawyer, academic, broadcaster, commentator, rock musician, one-time Richmond mascot and now, dinner party host.

Prior to taking a place at the table with some of Australia’s most interesting thinkers and creative types, he’s tackled comedy as a writer and presenter for SBS’s Salam Café and played it straight, presenting news as host of ABC radio’s Mornings program in Melbourne and as an anchor for ABC News Breakfast.

Waleed’s social and political commentary appears regularly in newspapers such as the Guardian, The Australian, the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. His first book, People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West (Picador, 2007), was shortlisted for the best newcomer award in the Australian Book Industry Awards and the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards in 2008.

When he’s not broadcasting or writing, Waleed is probably doing something musical. He is the guitarist and main songwriter for Melbourne originals band Robot Child, and co-wrote the theme music for Salam Café. He played lead guitar in the world’s first ever theatrical production of Pink Floyd’s classic album The Wall with Nuworks Theatre in Melbourne, in the process helping to raise $60,000 to rebuild a girls’ school in Afghanistan destroyed by the Taliban.

Waleed is currently also a lecturer at the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University – and is probably the only Australian academic to have trended on Twitter twice and is almost certainly the only Australian terrorism expert to have written a formal harmonic and structural analysis of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Waleed lives in Melbourne with his wife and two young children.