About
Ammar A. Malik is an award-winning researcher, policy advisor and trainer at AidData, a research lab at the Global Research Institute at the College of William & Mary. He is a faculty affiliate in the Public Policy Program at William & Mary, affiliate in the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute and research fellow at the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan.
Ammar’s research examines how China’s rise as the world’s largest provider of foreign development assistance is reshaping global development. He explores how developing countries are utilizing China’s Belt & Road Initiative to support economic development, and how environmental degradation is hampering progress. Over the last decade, his research and advisory work has sought to understand why and how infrastructure affects the wellbeing of various groups in society differently.
His research has been published in a wide range of academic journals and edited book volumes. It has been featured in leading media outlets including The New York Times, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Newsweek, CNN, BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, and several others. He has also been invited to deliver senior briefings and policy advisory by government agencies and private corporations in the USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
As principal investigator, he has received over $10 million in research funding from sponsors such as the World Bank, UNESCO, Hewlett Foundation, Gates Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, International Growth Centre, UNESCO, Canada’s IDRC, Germany’s GIZ, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of State, and Harvard University.
In 2019, his paper on the gendered impacts of environmental degradation won the Best Paper Award for Comparative Public Policy by the Association of Public Policy and Management. In 2017, his research on gender-based violence in urban public transit won the World Bank and Sexual Violence Research Initiative’s 2017 Development Marketplace Innovation Award.
Besides research, Ammar co-founded the policy advisory firm Shared Pathways, which supports evidence-based public decision making around the world. Through strategy consulting, data advisory services and capacity building for nonprofits and public agencies, he has helped improve their effectiveness in delivering services to their core beneficiaries.
Previously, Ammar was director of research at the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he led research-policy collaborations by deploying evidence-based insights and training to improve public policies and leadership. As senior research associate at the Urban Institute, he led action research programs on women’s economic empowerment, forced displacement, and urban resilience building.
His in-person teaching has included graduate level seminars at Boston University and George Mason University, and asynchronous virtual courses at William & Mary and Harvard University. As a Harvard-certified master trainer in evidence-based policymaking, he has led executive education courses at Civil Services Academy Pakistan, National Defense University Washington DC, and the Ministry of Labor Saudi Arabia.
Ammar obtained a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University, M.A. in Public Affairs from Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) Paris, M.A. in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He is fluent in English, Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi.
