Yilkal Ayalew Workneh earned his Ph.D. in Federalism and Governance from Addis Ababa University's Center for Federalism and Governance Studies. He has been working as an assistant professor and research and community service coordinator at the College of Social Science and Humanities at Debre Tabor University. His research interests are post-colonial state-nation building, federalism and nation-building in multi-ethnic societies, peacebuilding, and sub-national and local government. Yilkal has worked on several independent and collaborative academic and policy-related projects across the interdisciplinary fields of governance, federalism, and peacebuilding. He has been researching in the above areas and has published research papers and reports in reputable journals and repositories. He was also an APN IRF 2024 fellow.