Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism and former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). Before moving to the GSD in 2011, Davis served as the head of the International Development Group in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. Trained as a sociologist with an interest in history and political geography, Davis’s research interests include the political economy of development, sovereignty, governance, and conflict –-particularly at the urban scale. Current projects include an examination of spatial strategies for inclusion in socially, racially, and ethnically divided cities and the governance of territories at risk in the context of climate change or other vulnerabilities. Author of numerous articles and monographs that examine issues as diverse as social movements, informality, and the relationship between state formation and violence, her books or edited volumes include Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Conflicts in the Urban Realm (Indiana University Press, 2011); Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge University Press), Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (Cambridge University Press), and Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Temple University Press 1994; Spanish translation Fondo de Cultura Ecónomica 1999).