Charles Schmitz is a professor of geography at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he has taught since 1999, and a scholar at the Middle East Institute. Schmitz is a specialist on the Middle East and Yemen. He began his academic career as a Fulbright Scholar and as an American Institute for Yemeni Studies fellow in Yemen in the early 1990s. His current research interests include the political economy of development in Yemen, international law and counterterrorism policy, international governance and failing states, and the sociology of contemporary Yemeni society. Schmitz holds a BS in conservation and resource studies, an MA in geography, and a PhD in geography from the University of California, Berkeley.