Benjamin N. Lawrance is a Barber B. Conable Jr. Endowed Chair in International Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was previously an Assistant Professor of History at University of California Davis. His work includes research and teaching about children in Africa, including child labor, child soldiers, human rights, and modern forms of slavery and servitude.

While working on his Ph.D., Benjamin was an HIV counselor at Stanford University. He adapted the counseling approach used there to begin an HIV counseling program at universities in Africa. He also helped to begin a mobile HIV testing unit for deployment in rural Africa.

Professor Lawrance studied Ancient European history at University College London, and received his B.A. and an M.A. At Stanford University, under the guidance of Richard Roberts, he earned an A.M. and a Ph.D. in African Studies from the Department of History. His dissertation explored the social antecedents to nationalism among the Ewe of British and French mandated Togoland, 1919-1945. His article on women's riots in Togo circa 1933 won the African Studies Association Prize for Best Paper Presented at an Annual Meeting.

He has served as an expert witness on human rights in West Africa, as a consultant for the Ghana Studies Council and the American Society for Legal History, and as a reviewer for several scholarly journals. He is currently working on two edited volumes; the first with Richard Roberts and Emily Osborn on the role of intermediaries in the construction of African colonial law; and the other, the third volume of the Handbook of Eweland, focusing on the Ewes of Togo and Benin. More information about Benjamin N. Lawrance may be found at his Website: http://www.lawrance.org.