I am currently a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka. I was also the inaugural Mushtaque Chowdhury Professor of Health and Poverty at the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. I have academic affiliations with JPAL (MIT), International Growth Centre (IGC, based at LSE and Oxford), Centre for Evaluation and Development (C4ED, Mannheim) and Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES, Monash University). I am a Lead Academic for the Bangladesh Growth Program at International Growth Centre (IGC), an advisor at South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). Previously, I have worked as a full-time Research Fellow at the Institute of Microfinance (InM). Before that I have worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Department of Medicine and Center for Health and Social Science (CHeSS) at the University of Chicago.
Currently, I am working in a number of research projects addressing intra-firm productivity and management issues in ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. I also work in public health field to understand how promotion using local women leaders and also monitoring and incentive can motivate better hand hygiene behaviours. I am also increasingly interested in climate change, energy use, and environmental issues.
I earned my PhD in Economics from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in 2007 where I also got an MA in Economics in 2003. Before that I graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka where I obtained MSS in 1998 and BSS (Honours) in 1997.