Daniel Martin Varisco is Research Professor and Coordinator of Social Science in the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at Qatar University.  He serves as President of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS), editor-in-chief of CyberOrient (www.cyberorient.net) and editor of Contemporary Islam.  He taught anthropology at Hofstra University for 23 years and chaired the newly formed Department of Anthropology.  At Hofstra he was the Director of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies program. From 2002-2004 he served as President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. His last book was Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (U. of Washington Press, 2007) and he is currently writing a Handbook of Ayyubid and Rasulid Yemen.  His publications include over 45 articles in professional journals, 16 chapters in edited books and 150 book reviews.  In 1978-79 he conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Yemen on traditional water resource use, irrigation and agriculture with his wife, Dr. Najwa Adra. In addition to his research in the Middle East as an anthropologist and historian, he has experience as a development consultant in Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.  He moderates the blog tabsir.net.