Gawdat Bahgat (born c. 1960s) is a professor of political science at the National Defense University. Bahgat was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt and earned degrees at Cairo University and American University in Cairo. He emigrated to the United States and earned his Ph.D at Florida State University in 1991.Bahgat served as a professor of political science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2009 where he also was the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.