Dereje Feyissa is an eminent Ethiopian scholar with a regional focus on the Horn of Africa. He holds a doctorate in Social Anthropology from Martin-Luther University, Halle, Germany. He has extensive experience as a Research Fellow at Osaka University in Japan; at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and the Alexander von Humboldt in Germany. Dereje has worked as Research Professor at the International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI) and attached to ILPI Centre for African Studies as Africa Research Director. Dereje also worked as Senior Research Advisor to the Life and Peace Institute, Horn of Africa Regional Program. Besides, he holds an Adjunct Associate professor position at Addis Ababa University at the College of Law and Governance.
Dereje has extensive fieldwork experience and has conducted research on ethnicity and conflict; Islam in contemporary Ethiopia; the political economy of development and the transnational politics of migrants, among other topics. He is the author and co-editor of several books on ethnic identity, centre-periphery relations and migration-related issues in the Horn of Africa. Additionally, Dereje has authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. He has also conducted extensive consultancy works for international organizations, inter alia projects on the issue of indigeneity in Ethiopia for the WB; nexus between education and peacebuilding for UNICEF and rural to urban migration to secondary cities in Ethiopia for the EU Trust Fund.