Bairu Tafla is a Professorat the University of Hamburg, Faculty of Orientalistics, of which the Department of Ethiopian Studies has been a constituent part. Heearned his Ph.D. in History from Hamburg University, Germany. He is one of the leading figures in Ethiopian Historiography and contributed a great deal to the establishment of Encyclopedia Aethiopica. He has promoted Ethiopian Studies in Germany and prepared Register of International Scholars in Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, published in a series in Aethiopica. He contributed to Orbis Aethiopicus, which was initiated by Prince Dr Asfawosen Asrate. He has also published an annotated bibliography on Eritrea.