Dr Nausheen H. Anwar is an urban planner, and her research is situated at the intersection of urban planning, urban studies, geography, anthropology, political ecology. Her research addresses the challenges of climate change, violence, security, gender, infrastructural development, land displacement, participatory urban planning, and disaster risk mitigation.
In addition to being a Fellow of the IDS in the Cities Cluster, Nausheen is also a Professor of City and Regional Planning, Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts, at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi, Pakistan. Nausheen is also the Founder and Director of the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) – an interdisciplinary, collaborative platform of research, teaching, mentoring, and advocacy focused on understanding the challenges of urbanisation, planning, infrastructural development, and climate change in the Global South.
Nausheen has extensive experience collaborating with academic partners in Global North and South; in building cross-continental South-to-South partnerships; and in managing large-scale, multi-city projects, as well as working with grassroots organisations and local governments. Her current project investigates the impact of global warming in cities and explores practices of heat risk mitigation in an everyday context, and how these are central to challenges of urban planning, development, survival, and social/physical infrastructures in the urban Global South.
Nausheen’s book ‘Infrastructure Redux: Crisis, Progress in Industrial Pakistan & Beyond’ explores how infrastructures underpin visions of progress/development.
