waris was born in nairobi in 1974. she earned her first degree at the university of nairobi. waris took master's degrees in 2002 at the university of london and in 2004 at the university of pretoria. her doctorate in tax law was awarded by lancaster university in 2009 following a thesis on "solving the fiscal crisis: re-legitimising the fiscal state through the realisation of human rights a case study of the kenyan constituency development fund" supervised by prof. sol picciotto. from 2007 to 2013 she was vice-chair of the tax justice network.