Professor Lydon received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Her dissertation is entitled “On Trans-Saharan Trails: Trading Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa, 1840s-1930s.” It explores the long-distance trading networks of families who, across three generations, organized camel caravans on trans-Saharan trails. It covers a large area encompassing Mauritania and the bordering regions of northwestern Mali, southern Morocco and northern Senegal. The study is based on a wide variety of sources ranging from oral histories and colonial archives, to Arabic trading records found in private libraries.