Saturday, November 7, 2026
9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Keynote Speaker: Laura Hammond
Laura Hammond is Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Knowledge Exchange and Professor of Development Studies at SOAS University of London, and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She has been conducting research on food security, conflict, migration, and diasporas in and from the Horn of Africa since the early 1990s. She lived in Ethiopia from 1993-2000, conducting research and working for various aid agencies. She is Head of the London International Development Centre-Migration Leadership Team and Team Leader of the EU Trust Fund’s Research and Evidence Facility on migration and conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Laura has done consultancy for a wide range of development and humanitarian organizations, including UNDP, USAID, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the World Food Programme. She is the author of “This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia” (Cornell University Press: 2004) and several book and journal articles.
Schedule
| 9:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m. | Check-in & Networking |
| 10:00 a.m.–10:15 a.m. | Welcome & Framing Cynthia Caron, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Sustainability and Social Justice |
| 10:15 a.m.–11:00 a.m. | Keynote: “Is Development Dead? Research, Teaching and Studying in an Age of Crisis” |
| 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. | Panel Discussion: “Whose Knowledge, Whose Voice?” |
| 12:15 p.m.–1:00 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:15 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Panel Discussion: “What Do We Know, and From Whom?” |
| 2:30 p.m.–2:45 p.m. | Closing Remarks |
