I am a political scientist with extensive experience spanning academia and think tanks. Currently, I am a senior research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets (CGM) and the founding editor-in-chief and host of Negotiating Ideas, an online magazine and podcast on democracy and pluralism. I am also a non-resident fellow at Princeton University's Afghanistan Policy Lab.

I worked as an assistant professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) until 2021, when my country fell for the second time to the Taliban, an anti-democratic Islamist movement that rejects the very idea of pluralism. I, like many other academics, encountered a significant level of security vulnerability, compounded in my case by the fact that I had a reputation for the outspoken way I expressed critical opinions in public. With the increasing erosion of democratic governance in Afghanistan, which ended, as you know, with the forceful seizure of power by the Taliban, I reluctantly joined the mass exodus from Kabul in August 2021. The University of Pittsburgh welcomed me as a refugee scholar on a visiting appointment.

The twelve years of my precious childhood were lost in a tough time when Afghanistan was experiencing consistent devastating crises, from state fragmentation to civil war to the dark age of Taliban totalitarian rule to resistance. Our house was destroyed, we were displaced, our family was scattered, and we lost many of our dear ones.

I spent my twenties in Delhi, where I earned a doctorate and became the first PhD holder of the Social Science Faculty in the South Asian University (SAU), a university established by the SAARC nations; I was also the first Afghanistan citizen who was awarded a doctorate in SAU. My primary research interests include pluralism, governance, human rights, political Islam, the Taliban, and democracy in diverse societies. I have been an advocate of political reform, constitutionalism, and pluralism.

My most recent book, Negotiating Cultural Diversity in Afghanistan, which won a 2022 book prize for Best Book in Social Science from the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS), examines the challenges to peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society and develops a theory of governance of diversity.

While I have steeped myself in theoretical traditions as a scholar and a teacher, much of my work is aimed at conducting policy-relevant research. Over the last several years, I have taken part in several think tank policy panels, including those sponsored by the US Institute of Peace (USIP), the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS), Brookings, the Middle East Institute, South Asia Monitor, and the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies.

As a policy researcher, I have had the opportunity to work on a number of interesting projects. Among the papers I produced, I wrote a report in 2016 on the status of minority rights in Afghanistan (South Asia State of Minorities Report-2016: Mapping the Terrain) for the South Asia Collective, a network of South Asian Human Rights groups. I also conducted research for the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) between 2017 and 2020 and in the Department of Peace Studies with the National Centre for Policy Research (NCPR) at Kabul University in 2011. These contributions initiated substantive policy attention and debates and were featured in the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Dialogue on Afghanistan and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi. Through my work at AISS, I remained close to policy discussions taking place in Kabul with diplomatic missions in 2019 and 2020 and also participated in dialogues and conferences in the United States, Norway, India, China, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. My work has appeared in venues such as The Atlantic Council, Jadaliyya, Fair Observer, The National Interest, and numerous Farsi outlets. I also appear regularly on BBC Persian, Afghanistan International, and ToloNews (three prominent Farsi TVs).

I have received numerous fellowships:

1. Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL) Fellowship, 2024-2025.
2. John F. Richards Fellowship, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS), 2024.
3. Institute of International Education (IIE)’s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) Fellowship, 2021-2024.
4. MESA Global Academy Fellowship, Middle East Studies Association (MESA), 2022-23.
5. CAMCA Fellowship, The Central Asian-Caucasus Institute, American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), 2022.
6. The New University in Exile Consortium, The New School, New York, Seminar Lead and Co-lecturer, Fall 2022.
7. Silver Jubilee Scholarship, Masters and PhD in IR, Government of India, 2011–2017.
8. Manfred Wörner Paper Award, National Center for Policy Research (NCPR), Kabul University, 2010.