Fatos Tarifa

Dr. Fatos Tarifa (born 1954) is a social scientist and a former diplomat from Albania.

He served as Albanian ambassador to the Netherlands (1998–2001) and to the United States (2001–2005). Currently he is Director of the European University of Tirana Institute of Social and Policy Studies. Tarifa has taught and conducted research at the University of Tirana, the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, Webster University (Leiden, the Netherlands), Campbell University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Eastern Michigan University and he has delivered lectures at institutions of higher education throughout the world, such as Duke University, Stanford University, New York University, Harvard University, Brown University, University of California at Berkeley, Tufts University, University of Essex, University of Amsterdam etc.

Tarifa has authored, co-authored and edited 37 books and more than 80 journal articles. His books and articles have covered topics ranging from democratic transition and social issues in Eastern Europe to Human development, and current international affairs. In 1998 he became the founding Editor of "Sociological Analysis", an innovative, international scholarly journal published at Chapel Hill, NC. He serves as a member of the International Advisory Board of the "Journal of Social Sciences" and the "Journal of Applied Social Science".

Dr. Tarifa will probably be best remembered as the leader of a campaign to introduce the discipline of sociology into higher education in Albania. He is widely considered to be "the founder of sociological studies in Albania, and one of the country's most prominent social scientists" (1)(2). Tarifa has "already earned the title of father of Albanian sociology, a moniker he has generally resisted" (3). He is a founding member of the Albanian Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011).