I am a Professor of Development Economics in the Faculty of Economics at Malaya University where until recently I additionally held the post of Deputy Director at the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS). I also held visiting positions at Oxford, Harvard, Kent, Manchester, Reading and Mindanao State Universities (UK). Other affiliations include Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), South-East Asia Lead of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), Fellow of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College and Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). In addition to holding the above positions, I have worked at BRAC (Bangladesh) as a Distinguished Fellow.
Current research draws upon data from South and South-East Asia and focuses on issues such as poverty, labor market, education, child marriage, gender and the rise of non-state (low-cost for-profit, NGO-run as well as Islamic) schools. Past work has been supported by national (e.g. HIR scheme of University of Malaya) as well as international grants (e.g. the Australian Development Research Award scheme, Leverhulme Trust, International Growth Centre (IGC), DFID, South Asian Network of Economic Research Institutes (SANEI) and the World Bank).
I am an Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities and on the editorial advisory board of COMPARE: A Journal of Comparative and International Education and International Journal of Educational Development.
Leverhulme Trust Fellowship 2011