Berkley Center

Dr. Habib Ahmed is a professor and Sharjah Chair of Islamic Law and Finance at the business school at Durham University. Prior to Durham University, he worked at the National Commerce Bank and the Islamic Research and Training Institute of the Islamic Development Bank Group in Saudi Arabia; he also taught at the University of Connecticut, National University of Singapore, and University of Bahrain. Ahmed’s research interests include Islamic economics and finance, contemporary applications of Islamic commercial law, and non-profit organizations, and he has authored/edited more than 65 publications, including Product Development in Islamic Banks (2011) and Role of Zakat and Awqaf in Poverty Alleviation (2004).

Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed is a professor of International Relations at the University of Dhaka. Prior to that, he has taught at Sagesse University, University of Paris XI, Yokohama City University, Carleton University, and Jahangirnagar University. His research interests include South Asian politics, religion and culture, tolerance and terrorism, the politics of development, refugees and migration, and women and the environment. His publications include Contemporarising Tagore & the World (2013), Women & Militancy: South Asian Complexities (2011), and Terrorism in the 21st Century: Perspectives from Bangladesh (2009).

Sadiq Ahmed is a development economist and co-founder of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, established in 2009, where he worked with a team to develop the Bangladesh Sixth Five Year Plan and the Bangladesh National Social Protection Strategy. Ahmed previously spent 1981 to 2009 at the World Bank, serving as country director for Pakistan and Afghanistan and chief economist for the South Asia region; he also lead key missions to Egypt, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Ahmed first worked as a lecturer in economics at Dhaka University in 1974, followed by a stint at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies as a research fellow. He has lectured extensively on key development topics at a number of institutions, from the Foreign Policy Training Institute of the US State Department to the Bangladesh Defense College. Dr. Ahmed received his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Ph.D. from Boston University.

Syed Zain Al-Mahmood is a journalist who covers Bangladesh and other South Asian regional news for the Wall Street Journal. His interests range across the fields of political economy, gender norms, and globalization, with a focus on societies in transition and conflict. As an investigative journalist, he has written regularly for the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian, as well as regional newspapers, for more than a decade. He has won several international awards for his coverage of politics, human rights, and sustainable development in Bangladesh. Before joining the Journal, Mahmood worked at the Dhaka Tribune, United News of Bangladesh, and the Daily Star in Bangladesh.

Masooda Bano is University Research Lecturer at the University of Oxford's Department of International Development. She is also a research fellow at Wolfson College. Bano is currently working on a project that examines female Islamic education movements across the Muslim world since the 1970s through support from the United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council/Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowships on Ideas and Beliefs, which are part of the Global Uncertainties initiative. Her expertise includes South Asia, female Islamic movements, madrasa and religious education, and development. Bano is the author of The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan (2012) and Breakdown in Pakistan: How Aid Is Eroding Institutions for Collective Action (2012), as well as numerous other articles and book chapters.

Dr. Benedict D’Rozario worked for Caritas Bangladesh from 1987 through 2016, serving as the executive director from 2005 until his retirement in June 2016. D'Rozario serves as the chair of Caritas Internationalis Committee for Institutional Development and Capacity Strengthening. He is also a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life. D'Rozario serves on the government of Bangladesh's National Steering Committee for Rural Development Policy and is a member of the Humanitarian Advisory Council of Caritas Internationalis in Rome. D’Rozario obtained his second M.Sc. from the University of Portland and his Ph.D. from the University of Bath. The title of his Ph.D. thesis is Factors Influencing the Growth of Sustainable People’s Organization at the Grassroot Level: The Case of Caritas DEEDS and Sangathan in Bangladesh.

Dr. Samia Huq is a research fellow at the Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University as well as an associate professor and interim dean of humanities and social sciences at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She obtained her Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where her research explored women’s religious discussion groups in urban Bangladesh. Her current research includes cultural activism of Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan and the impact of secondary secular and madrasa education on gendered norms and practices. Dr. Huq has worked on the Global Life Stories Project with Musawah: For Equality in the Muslim Family, and is one of Musawah’s global advocates. In addition, she coordinates the BRAC University-Georgetown University Speakers' Forum series on faith and development.

Lamia Karim is an associate professor and associate head of anthropology at the University of Oregon. Her research interests are in globalization, modernity, gender, and social movements. She is the author of Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh (2011), which is a radical critique of the relationship between women and microfinance in Bangladesh. She is currently working on a new book manuscript entitled Body in Change: Female Muslim Modernities in Bangladesh. Her research has received support from the National Science Foundation, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and a Fulbright Scholarship. She is also the recipient of two Rockefeller Postdoctoral Awards.