
Since finishing my Ph.D. degree in September 2021, I have been working as the Senior Research Fellow for the University of Massachusetts Boston. I am mainly responsible for managing the education sector portfolio of the USAID-funded Advancing Higher Education for Afghanistan’s Development (AHEAD) project.
In 2015, after completing coursework for my doctorate, I returned to Afghanistan and served as the Senior Manager for Associate Degrees and the Senior Representative of UMass/CIE in Afghanistan for the USAID-funded Afghanistan University Support and Workforce Development Program (USWDP).
Between 2015 and 2019, I led the efforts for developing and implementing five Associate Degree programs in Afghan public universities. I also served as an academic advisor in the Master of Educational Leadership and Management (MELM) program at Kabul Education University. I advised and mentored the program students who were writing their theses in English. The program was established with technical assistance from UMass-CIE as part of the USWDP.
Since 2006, I have served in different capacities including all four USAID-funded Higher Education Projects in Afghanistan. Prior to that, I worked for UN-FAO, CARE International, and the Afghanistan Land Authority and held different positions for nearly seven years. These experiences have helped me understand the practical realities of development programs, mainly in higher education which complemented the theoretical perspectives I learned in my doctoral program.
I received my master’s degree in international education from UMass and B.Sc. in Agriculture from Kabul University. I have two decades of professional experience and growing responsibility, working with International Organizations, Academic Institutions, and the United Nations, including fourteen years in higher education development and capacity building. Much of my work in higher education development has focused on developing academic programs, research, monitoring, evaluation, proposal development, institutional capacity development, and design and management of large-scale development programs.
I have served many organizations throughout my professional career, including the University of Massachusetts Boston, CIE at UMass Amherst, the Academy for Educational Development, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizations, Afghanistan Land Authority (Arazi), and CARE International in Afghanistan.
My dissertation research was a qualitative study that explored alternative funding sources and options for financing public universities in Afghanistan. The full text of the dissertation is available on UMass Scholarworks here. [12-21]
Email: hassanaslami@gmail.com