Rounaq Jahan

Rounaq Jahan "joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1990 as a senior research scholar at the Southern Asian Institute and as an adjunct professor of international affairs, School of International and Public Affairs. She has taught the following graduate courses: Women and Development: Key Policy Issues (1991–95); Gender, Politics and Development (1998); and Arsenic Crisis in Bangladesh (2000).

"Professor Jahan's research is concentrated on gender and development, governance, health, and politics of Bangladesh. Among her books are Bangladesh: Promise and Performance, which she edited (Zed Books 2000), The Elusive Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Development (St. Martin's Press 1995); Bangladesh Politics: Problems and Issues (University Press 1980); Women and Development: Perspectives from South and South-East Asia, which she coedited with Hanna Papanek (Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs 1979); and Pakistan: Failure in National Integration (Columbia 1972). She is also the author of numerous articles published in edited books and academic journals.

"In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Rounaq Jahan has a very active professional career. While at Dhaka University, Bangladesh, she served in an advisory capacity on several policymaking bodies established by the Government of Bangladesh in the field of education, culture, rural development, women, and population between 1970 and 1993. In the period 1985–89 she was the head of the Programme on Rural Women, Employment and Development Department at the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland. For two years Professor Jahan was the coordinator of the Programme on Integration of Women in Development, United Nations Asia Pacific Development Centre (APDC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She has been a research fellow at the CHR-Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway (1979); a research fellow at the Department of Political Science and Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago (1975–76); a visiting fellow at the Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago (1980); a senior research associate at the Center for Asian Development Studies, Boston University (1978); and a research associate at the Center for International Affairs and the Kennedy Institute, Harvard University (1971–72). Professor Jahan has been a consultant to UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, UNICEF, UNCDF, SIDA, NORAD, USAID, OECD, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and nonprofit organizations such as International Women's Health Coalition. She has been a member of many organizations and associations, among which are the advisory board of Human Rights Watch; Asia in New York; the board of trustees of the Population Council; the international council of the Asia Society; the advisory committee on rural development at the International Labor Organization; and a representative of Bangladesh to the 32nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1977.

"Rounaq Jahan received a BA and an MA in 1963 in political science from Dhaka University, Bangladesh. In 1968 she received an MA in political science from Harvard University, from where she also earned her PhD in 1970. From 1970 to 1993 she was at Dhaka University, Bangladesh where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses on comparative politics, political development, and research methodology, as well as supervised MPhil and PhD theses. From 1973 to 1975 she chaired the political science department at the University."