معرفی
Professor Masooda Bano serves as William Golding Senior Research Fellow at Brasenose College and Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford's Department of International Development. She leads the five-year ERC-funded Changing Structures of Islamic Authority (CSIA) project examining Islamic scholarly debates and their societal impacts.
Her academic credentials include an MPhil in Development Studies from Cambridge and a DPhil from Oxford. These qualifications underpin her expertise in development theory and field research methodologies.
Bano's research centers on the interplay between ideas, beliefs, and material incentives in development processes. She investigates how psycho-social factors shape individual choices and collective outcomes, with particular focus on Islamic authority structures, female education movements, and aid effectiveness. Her work combines large-scale comparative studies using ethnographic and survey data across Muslim-majority contexts.
Recent publications reveal a concentrated focus on education policy in developing nations, especially Pakistan, Nigeria, and Indonesia. Key themes include decentralized education planning, low-fee private tuition markets, community participation models, and Islamic education systems. The research consistently examines religion-development intersections and institutional responses to social change.
Her scientific recognition includes:
- Two competitive ESRC Fellowships
- A 1.4 million euro ERC Starting Grant for the CSIA project
- ESRC Best Social Science Impact award for Nigeria education interventions
Bano supervises MPhil/DPhil theses at Oxford and has advised major development agencies, notably designing DfID's education reforms in northern Nigeria. Her CSIA project coordinates a multinational team conducting textual analysis, surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork to map evolving Islamic authority structures.
