Amna Qayyum
Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Center for Universal Education
Amna Qayyum is a historian of global development, decolonization, and U.S. foreign relations, with a regional specialization in South Asia. As a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Qayyum leads the Echidna Global Scholars Fellowship and contributes to the Center for Universal Education’s research portfolio on gender equality in and through education.
Qayyum’s current research foregrounds gender in the study of political economy and global governance. Her book manuscript, “Authoritarian Body Politics in Muslim South Asia,” demonstrates how reproductive health and education programs have crucially shaped gender norms, development politics, and U.S. foreign relations in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Focusing both on policymaking and praxis, it links a diverse set of stakeholders from across the Global South and North and reveals the multi-scalar centrality of reproductive politics to everyday life, governance, and global geopolitics.
Prior to joining Brookings, Qayyum was a Henry A. Kissinger postdoctoral fellow in international security studies at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. For the past decade, she has also worked with a variety of government and educational partners in Pakistan. She has advised the government on COVID-19-related human security, collaborated with the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on a research project focusing on population and governance, and conducted educational advising and outreach for the Fulbright Commission in Islamabad. In Washington, D.C., Qayyum has developed research on gender and nuclear security in South Asia as part of the Nuclear Futures Working Group (NFWG) convened by the New America Foundation. As an educator, she has also worked with university and refugee learners through Princeton University’s Global History Lab.
Qayyum's scholarship has been awarded the 2021 Pirzada Prize in Pakistan Studies by the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has also been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Foundation, the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Joint Center for Economics and History at Harvard University, among other institutions. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post and her scholarly research is forthcoming in Cold War History.
She holds a doctoral degree from Princeton University.
Amna Qayyum is a historian of global development, decolonization, and U.S. foreign relations, with a regional specialization in South Asia. As a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Qayyum leads the Echidna Global Scholars Fellowship and contributes to the Center for Universal Education’s research portfolio on gender equality in and through education.
Qayyum’s current research foregrounds gender in the study of political economy and global governance. Her book manuscript, “Authoritarian Body Politics in Muslim South Asia,” demonstrates how reproductive health and education programs have crucially shaped gender norms, development politics, and U.S. foreign relations in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Focusing both on policymaking and praxis, it links a diverse set of stakeholders from across the Global South and North and reveals the multi-scalar centrality of reproductive politics to everyday life, governance, and global geopolitics.
Prior to joining Brookings, Qayyum was a Henry A. Kissinger postdoctoral fellow in international security studies at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. For the past decade, she has also worked with a variety of government and educational partners in Pakistan. She has advised the government on COVID-19-related human security, collaborated with the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on a research project focusing on population and governance, and conducted educational advising and outreach for the Fulbright Commission in Islamabad. In Washington, D.C., Qayyum has developed research on gender and nuclear security in South Asia as part of the Nuclear Futures Working Group (NFWG) convened by the New America Foundation. As an educator, she has also worked with university and refugee learners through Princeton University’s Global History Lab.
Qayyum’s scholarship has been awarded the 2021 Pirzada Prize in Pakistan Studies by the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has also been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Foundation, the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Joint Center for Economics and History at Harvard University, among other institutions. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post and her scholarly research is forthcoming in Cold War History.
She holds a doctoral degree from Princeton University.
