Tahira is a post-doctoral fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi. She examines the nexus between development programs and humanitarian support, exploring the institutional barriers to linking resilience-humanitarian-peace in preventing food crises among the pastoralists and agro-pastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa.

She is a social anthropologist and developmement expert with close to 10 years of research experience in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia’s drylands. Her research focuses on pastoralism, policies, resilience, development, social protection, livelihood transformation, migration, and moral economy practices. Before joining ILRI, Tahira worked with multiple research centers, including Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) at the University of Manchester and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

Tahira did her PhD at the University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom, under the PASTREs (Pastoralism, Resilience and Uncertainty) program. Her thesis explored the role of the moral economy in response to uncertainty among the Borana pastoralists of Northern Kenya, Isiolo County. She holds a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Nairobi. Her MA project was on human smuggling across the Kenya-Ethiopia border. Tahira did her BA in Anthropology at the University of Nairobi, Institute of Anthropology, Gender, and African Studies. She has co-published in World Development, the Journal of Peasant Studies, and Pastoralism, Policy and Practice.