Farah Said is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS.

In her work, Dr. Said uses field and lab experiments to study the dynamics of poverty and gender in LMICs. Her research investigates how men and women make decisions in the household; and factors that influence labor force participation, learning outcomes, and demand for low-cost energy and microfinance products among low-income households.

Previously, she has worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Finance and Economics, University of Goettingen, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB), and an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Lahore School of Economics. Dr. Said has a Ph.D. in Economics from Lahore School of Economics, an MSc. in Financial Economics from the University of Oxford, and a BSc (Hons.) in Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Soufia’s work is anchored in broad-spectrum qualitative research methods that can help explain the political economy of educational experience in the Pakistani context. Specifically, she investigates how system design engenders inefficiencies and frictions that contribute to contested notions of identity in sites of learning, and their implications for effective service delivery.

This theme informs two of her current projects. The first is a qualitative investigation she leads into Pakistani public school teacher motivation and identity as part of the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) Programme’s Political Economy component housed at the University of Pennsylvania. The second is a process tracing exploration she co-leads into how delivery models are constructed and enacted by elite public education decision-makers as part of the Pakistan team for Lahore-based think tank IDEAS and its global partners, The Education Commission and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.

Previously, Soufia was Technical Advisor to the School Education Department, Punjab where she worked on key policy initiatives with the government, including developing a 5-year roadmap for the province’s most urgent reform needs. This project payed special attention to the need for a coherent learning outcomes dataset as well as governance strategies for whole-system improvement. She was also a member of the Punjab Examination Commission, where she led the Technical Committee for the province’s 2019 Assessment Policy Framework and, between 2015 and 2018, a research advisor to Alif Ailaan, Pakistan’s first education advocacy campaign.

Dr Siddiqi was Pakistan’s 2010 Rhodes Scholar to the University of Oxford, where she read for a DPhil Education (2017) and MSc Comparative and International Education (2011) at St. Anne’s College. Her first degree is in Economics from Government College University Lahore.

Momina Idrees is the Research Manager at Mahbub-ul-Haq Research Centre.

Previously, she worked to reform the curriculum through teacher training at the primary level for KarisMath, UK. She was also the Curriculum Associate for the Executive Education wing at the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) and a Research Associate at the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW). She has also been a part of various field experiments and projects including The Procurement Efficiency Project (CERP), The Political Economy of Public Goods Provision in Lahore Slums (IGC) as well as Electricity and Rural Development: Insights from a Natural Experiment in Punjab, Pakistan (LSE and IGC). Her research interests include the postcolonial city, gender and urban spaces, and education.

Momina has an MSc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BSc. Hons. in Economics from LUMS.

Rida Fatima is a Research Assistant at the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre working on the Human Development Report. Additionally, Rida Fatima assists the IDEAS Research Team, currently working on the Women’s Voting Project for the Governance Cluster. She has a bachelor’s in Political Science and Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Her research interests include focussing on the intersectionality between gender and development and its policy outcomes. She plans on pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy.

Tanveer Ahmed is working as an Admin and Accounts Officer at the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre, LUMS. He has over fourteen years of experience in the field of finance,accounts and administration. He completed his MBA in Finance from the University of the Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi.