AAU appoints Dr Fana Gebresenbet as Director of IPSS

AAU appoints Dr Fana Gebresenbet as Director of IPSS

Dr. Fana Gebresenbet has been appointed Director of the Institute of Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University as of April 4, 2023, AAU President Office.

The AAU president, Professor Tassew Woldehana in the letter of appointment expressed that “Dr Fana will discharge his responsibility effectively and with full commitment” in his role.

Fana Gebresenbet is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, AAU, teaching masters and PhD courses.

In 2016, he received his PhD in Global and Area Studies, with special emphasis on peace and security in Africa, from the University of Leipzig and Addis Ababa University. His dissertation was on “The Political Economy of Land Investments: Dispossession, Resistance and Territory-Making in Gambella, Western Ethiopia.”

Dr. Fana has extensive fieldwork experience in various parts of Ethiopia. He has researched issues related to land investments, political economy of trade of agricultural commodities, center-periphery relations, developmentalism and migration, among others.

He has won research grants for: Principal Investigator (2021-2023): a GCRF funded research project entitled Migration, Urbanization and Conflict (MUCA) in Africa; Co-Investigator (January 2018-April 2019): ESRC-funded project ‘Shifting In/Equality Dynamics in Ethiopia: From Research to Application’ (Addis Ababa University); and Researcher (2017): Governing Irregular Migration: Agency of Potential Migrants and Culture of Migration in Tigray and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (With funding from GIGA).

He is also a Research Fellow at the Center for African Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa, and was a Southern Voices Scholar at the Wilson Center, Washington, DC, United States.

Fana’s research interests are on themes related to resource politics, politics of development, climate security, and pastoralism in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. He has published more than 32 journal articles and book chapters on these themes focusing on national and continental affairs.

He also consulted government authorities and various international organizations on these themes.