Dr. Alula Pankhurst is a social anthropologist and the Ethiopia Country Director of Young Lives, a longitudinal study of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. He joined Young Lives in 2009 where he is involved in coordinating research work in Ethiopia and leading on topics including urban relocation, child work, early marriage, and violence against children.
Dr. Pankhurst studied at the Universities of Oxford and Manchester where he received a PhD in Social Anthropology which he taught at Addis Ababa University. His research has focused on poverty and wellbeing, children’s education, work and marriage, adolescence and youth development, migration and displacement, food security and social exclusion, customary justice and local institutions and the longer-term impacts of interventions.
He is a member of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and the Independent Council of Economic Advisors under the Ministry of Planning and Development. He is a founding member of the Ethiopian Society of Sociologists, Social Workers and Anthropologists, and of the Child Research and Practice Forum under the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs. He is a board member of the Ethiopian Heritage Trust and the Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.
