Lahra Smith is a Political Scientist with a particular interest in African politics. Her recent research focused on the questions of equality and citizenship in contemporary African polities. Her book, entitled Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender and National Identity in Ethiopia, will be published by Cambridge University Press in April 2013. She has conducted fieldwork on the role of political institutions in addressing conflict based largely on ethnic and language identities in Ethiopia. In addition to study in Ethiopia, Prof. Smith has worked and studied in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Djibouti and Zimbabwe. She has worked for USAID and Oxfam America, and taught at Addis Ababa University and with high school teachers in Ethiopia,and she served as an election observer in Ethiopia (The Carter Center) and Kenya (USAID/US Embassy).