Abdi Ismail Samatar is Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota and a research fellow at the University of Pretoria. He is an elected member of the African Academy of Sciences, a former president of the African Studies Association, and a trustee of Mogadishu University. He is the author of four books, including An African Miracle, and more than seventy articles and essays on African development and politics, including "The Dialectics of Piracy in Somalia: The Rich versus the Poor."
