Will Reno was named the Payson S. Wild Chair of Political Science in an investiture ceremony held by the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences on November 2, 2023. Will Reno joined Northwestern’s Political Science department as associate professor in 1999, became full professor in 2012, served as director of the Program of African Studies from 2012 to 2018, and as head of political science since 2019. His research focus is the politics of violence and state collapse in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. He has authored many articles and several books, including Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge, 1995), and Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge, 2011). His current work centers on the politics of foreign assistance to security forces in very weak states and how patronage-based regimes that are reluctant to rely on their own armed forces and counterinsurgency campaigns. His chair is named after Payson S. Wild, a scholar of government, international law, and international relations, who served as vice president and dean of faculties at Northwestern from 1949 to 1969 and provost from 1969 to 1973.