Ammar A. Malik is the Director of EPoD Research. He leads research-policy engagements that derive actionable policy insights from rigorous research. He oversees EPoD’s labor market and education research portfolios in the Middle East, identifying and supporting opportunities for data and economic analysis to inform local policies that empower underrepresented groups and support social and economic development.  

Before joining EPoD, he was Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute in Washington DC, where he conceived, fundraised and led research programs on women’s economic empowerment and growth, the policy implications of forced displacement, and urban resilience building. He also previously worked at the World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority and Standard Chartered Bank. 

Ammar’s research focuses on spatial urban forms and their economic implications, the political economy of public service delivery, and the distributional effects of urban public transport. For his work on the economic impact of sexual harassment in urban public spaces, he was awarded the World Bank Group and Sexual Violence Research Initiative’s 2017 Development Marketplace Innovation Award. Ammar has used agent-based modeling to explore the emergence of innovation clusters within cities, including how land-use regulations, sprawl, spatial segregation and limited physical mobility stifles productivity. 

Ammar holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University, MA in Public Affairs from Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) Paris, MA in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore, and BA in Economics and Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.