Biography:

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Lahore Campus. I teach Economics of Environment, Natural Resource Economics, and Public Finance. Apart from teaching, I am actively involved in research and serving as in charge of research and graduate coordinator in the Department.
My main research interest lies in Environmental Economics, Labour Economics, and Health Economics. My research aims to improve public policy-making by understanding the impacts of environmental pollution on worker’s (in textile firms and agriculture) health and productivity. The other stream of my research focuses on the impacts of employment relations and work conditions on risky work behaviours by women workers in textile mills where I show that women's paid jobs in the textile and garment sectors are associated with huge social and health costs. Women work in precarious conditions which are associated with unjust wages, unjust hours, and insecure jobs which have pervasive consequences on the nature of work behavior, and occupational health My research employs a variety of methods including primary (survey data), secondary, and experimental design.

I have published several articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals and newspapers. My research has been funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) Nepal, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan, and the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad. Recently I received a Grant from the World Bank which is administered by the HEC to improve plastic bag ban compliance in Islamabad.

Before commencing an academic career in 2012, I served in the Ministry of Labour and Manpower in Islamabad Pakistan from 2008 to 2012 as a Research Economist. In the Ministry of Labour and Manpower, I studied several labour market challenges e.g. implication of informal employment growth, skills, decent work, women's employment, and wage discrimination.