The American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS), established in 1973, is a bi-national research and education organization with a mission to promote academic study of Pakistan in the US and to encourage scholarly exchange between the US and Pakistan.
Last month, a team of six staff from the Civic Initiative (a business group of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Donahue Institute) were in Islamabad. They held a three-day follow-up conference for alumni from recent cohorts of the Study of the U.S. Institutes Comparative Public Policymaking program that has been held annually by the Civic Initiative since 2010. The SUSI program is funded by the US Department of State Education and Cultural Affairs Office.
A new honors course titled "Psychology and AI: Where AI dances with Psychology" has been proposed by Dr. Sadaf Sajjad at Austin Community College. This groundbreaking course in psychological studies provides a foundational understanding of human behavior and mental processes, integrating the study of psychology and its influence on AI. Set to be taught for the first time starting in Spring 2025, this innovative course has been reviewed and accepted by the Honors Committee at Austin Community College.
Mehtabidah Ali's research paper was published in the International Journal of Heliyon. In the study, Ali utilized NASA Satellite Data to predict the behavior of surging glaciers in the HKH ranges of Northern Pakistan and analyzed the risks with glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).
Rizwan Ali Shinwari has joined a postdoctoral position in a joint project by the University of Bradfor, UK and Riphah University, Pakistan. The two-year long project will focus on the protection of children in the Pakistani community and will particularly focus on the rising trend in child sexual abuse cases. The project aims to conduct evidence-based research to reach at the core of the social issue.
Starting in January 2023, Cambridge University Press will publish a new interdisciplinary journal, Critical Pakistan Studies. The journal is a joint launch between CUP and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS); the University of Exeter South Asia Centre, UK; and Le Centre d ‘Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS), France.
Dr. Paul Edleman (Sauk Valley Community College), Prof. Farah Habib (Bristol Community College), and Dr. Robert Soza (Mesa Community College) facilitated an AIPS-sponsored workshop titled “Inter-Disciplinary Integration of Social Science & Humanities in Pedagogy and Curriculum Development at Skills Building Educational Institutions.
Congratulations to Dr. Nosheen Ali for receiving the 2022 AIPS Book Prize for her book titled Delusional States: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan's Northern Frontier! The Book Prize Committee writes that Dr. Ali's work "...advanced how the field thinks about the War on Terror, and how citizens in Gilgit-Baltistan negotiate and respond to the unique political economy created by the US and Pakistan in the borderlands." To see the committee's full comments, please see below. Congratulations again to Dr. Ali!
Congratulations to Dr. Rini Bhattacharya Mehta and Dr. Michael Hirsch who were recently elected to the AIPS At-Large Executive Committee! Dr. Mehta is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and of Religion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She works on the evolution and synthesis of modernity; nationalism, religious revival, cinema and the post-global nation state. Dr. Hirsch is a Professor of Sociology at Huston-Tillotson University. He is currently doing research on reconciliation between Pakistan and India and the career paths of Russian Cosmonauts.
Every two years, AIPS hosts an Emerging Scholars Pakistan Studies Symposium (previously known as the AIPS Junior Scholars Conference) in conjunction with the Annual Conference on South Asia. Graduate Students who are enrolled in a PhD program in a US academic institution and have ABD status are encouraged to apply. Post-Doctoral candidates who completed their PhD in or after 2017 are also eligible. Submit by July 15. There is no citizenship requirement. AIPS will fund travel, lodging, and per diem for all awardees.