I am a political economist interested in development policy, international development (multi-lateral institutions), formal and informal institutions, postwar governance and digital development. (For more on my research, see here and here).
I hold a PhD in Development Policy from University College London and an MA in International Political Economy from King’s College London. Most recently, I was a Teaching Fellow in Comparative Politics of Development and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs. Previously, I held a UK Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at SOAS, University of London, and worked in teaching support roles at University College London. In 2024, I became an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Beyond academia, I engage with policy and practice, most recently as an International Consultant for UNESCO. I previously advised Afghanistan’s Minister of Economy on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and have held roles at the UN Headquarters in New York, the EastWest Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in Kabul. I have also written over 50 op-eds (in English and Persian) for online media, including BBC, The Conversation, The Royal United Services Institute, and Foreign Policy, to share policy and research outputs with a broader public.
The places I have lived have left a deep imprint on me as a person. Born and having spent my early formative years in Kabul, Afghanistan, I migrated to Pakistan with my family in the 1990s when I was eight years old. I completed an undergraduate degree in economics in India on an Indian government scholarship and moved to the US in 2010 on a diversity immigrant visa, where I later became a citizen. Married in France, I have been living and working between the UK and France since 2016.