Raul Sanchez de la Sierra is an Academy Scholar at Harvard University, and will start as Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. Spanish born, raised in France, his research focuses on the political economy  of development. He has field experience in the DRC. He collected historical data on armed groups in 140 villages in Eastern DRC, to study why armed groups form proto-states at the local level. Raul has studied economics with a development focus at the Carlos III University, the University of Munich, Sciences-Po Paris, and Columbia University, where he obtained his PhD in 2014. He has worked in the DRC and Chile, and has experience in the Andean countries. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Private Enterprise Development in Low-income and developing countries, and the International Peace Research Association Foundation, and the International Center for Taxation and Development.