Asim Ijaz Khwaja is a Co-Founder and Board Member at CERP. He is the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development, Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), and the Director at the Center for International Development (CID) at HKS. Professor Asim is the former Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPOD) at Harvard Kennedy School. His areas of interest include economic development, finance, education, political economy, institutions, and contract theory/mechanism design. His research combines extensive fieldwork, rigorous empirical analysis, and microeconomic theory to answer questions that are motivated by and engage with policy. He has been published in leading economics journals, such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and has received coverage in numerous media outlets, such as The Economist, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Jazeera, BBC and CNN. Professor Asim’s recent work ranges from understanding market failures in emerging financial markets to examining the private education market in low-income countries. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 to pursue research on how religious institutions impact individual beliefs. He also serves as the faculty co-chair of a week-long executive education programme, “Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Smart Design for Policy and Practice,” aimed primarily at professionals involved in the design and regulation of financial products and services for low-income populations. Professor Asim received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and BS degrees in Economics and in Mathematics with Computer Science from MIT. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 to pursue research on how religious institutions impact individual beliefs. He was born in London, U.K., lived for eight years in Kano, Nigeria, the next eight in Lahore, Pakistan, and for the past several years in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He continues to enjoy interacting with people around the globe.

Basit Zafar is a Board Member at CERP. He is a Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on labour economics, economics of education, and household finance. Specifically, his work seeks to understand how individuals make decisions under uncertainty. Dr Basit’s research employs a disparate set of empirical methods and techniques, including the use of subjective expectations data and experimental data. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2008, and a BSc from the California Institute of Technology. Before joining the faculty at Michigan, Dr Basit held positions at Arizona State University and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Dilnaz Avari is a Board Member at CERP. She teaches Business Studies at Cedar College. For the past fifteen years, she taught Business Studies at The Lyceum School. Additionally, she has conducted various Cambridge International Examination training courses for teachers, and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Programme in Pakistan. She actively engages in charitable and philanthropic activities. Dilnaz is on the Board of Trustees of Empowering Communities for Change (ECC) which seeks to uplift the lives of underprivileged communities through education, women’s health and hygiene, and community welfare and rehabilitation. Dilnaz is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Professional Education Foundation, whose objective is to alleviate poverty through Professional Education. Dilnaz received her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA).

Maheen Rehman is a Board Member at CERP. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Infra Zamin, Pakistan. Maheen has over twenty years of experience in investment banking, research and asset management. In her previous appointment, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of Alfalah GHP Investment Management where, under her leadership, Alfalah Investments has grown to be one of the largest asset management companies in Pakistan. Prior to that, Maheen was the Chief Executive Officer of IGI Funds, during her tenure, IGI Funds turned into a profitable entity from a loss incurring fund. Her other roles include, Head of Research at BMA Capital Management, Associate at ABN AMRO Bank and investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. She has the experience of working across multiple geographies during her career. In addition to her extensive work experience and professional achievements, Maheen has a Masters of Science Degree in Finance and Economics from Warwick Business School in the UK and holds a Bsc(Hons) degree in Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).

Maroof A. Syed is the President and CEO of CERP and a Non-Resident Fellow, Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance, at Princeton University. He has over 25 years of entrepreneurship, investment and leadership experience in multiple sectors. He combines academic work in public policy, economics, and engineering with extensive experience in leading organizations and building institutions. Maroof’s areas of interest include evidence-based governance, data analytics and decision sciences, political economy, adaptive leadership, and the role of innovation and technology in economic development. Previously, he helds senior management positions at various large and start-up technology companies, including Broadcom Corporation (formerly Silicon Spice and Element 14), Texas Instruments and Intel Corporation (formerly Dialogic). He also co-founded Karnybo Group which invested in late-stage technology start-up companies (series C/D) including Tesla, Twitter, Facebook, Jawbone, Square and Palantir. He is the 2017 recipient of the Lucius N. Littauer Award from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). He is on the Board of Directors of the Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF), the African Development University ILIMI Foundation (ADU) and the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP). He is a Charter Member of the Organisation of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America in Boston (OPEN-Boston). Maroof has a Masters in Public Administration (MC/MPA) from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and degrees in Computer Systems Engineering from Rensselaer (RPI).

Tahir Andrabi is a Co-Founder and Board Member at CERP. He is a Professor of Economics at Pomona College. Professor Tahir is the former dean of the School of Education at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He has also been a visiting scholar at MIT, a research associate at LSE and a consultant for the World Bank. He was a member of the tax and macroeconomic committees of the economic advisory board of the government of Pakistan in 1999-2000. He is the principal investigator on the four-year longitudinal study on the quality of primary education in rural Punjab funded by the World Bank and the National Science Foundation. Professor Tahir is also the Principal Investigator on a National Academy of Sciences/Higher Education Commission, Pakistan grant on evaluating the recovery from the 2005 northern Pakistan earthquake. He Co-Founded the website, risepak.com, to help coordinate relief in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake which was awarded the Stockholm Challenge Award (2006). Professor Andrabi has published extensively in major economics and education journals. In 2007, his work on religious education in Pakistan received the George Bereday Award for the best paper published in Comparative Education Review in 2006 from the Comparative and International Education Society. His research has been covered by The Financial Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, The Economist, Foreign Policy and news media around the world. Professor Tahir is a graduate of Swarthmore College and holds a Doctorate in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.