Ferdous Jahan Post-Doctoral Fellow Email: jahan@sas.upenn.edu

Dr. Ferdous Jahan is a lecturer of Public administration at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh since 1997. Dr. Jahan took a leave of absence from her teaching position and came to the University of Pennsylvania with a Fulbright scholarship in 1999. She obtained a masters degree in government administration in 2001 and a Ph.D. in political science in 2005. She worked under the supervision of renowned political scientist and public law expert Prof. Rogers M. Smith and eminent criminologist Prof. Lawrence W. Sherman. Dr. Jahan’s current research concentrates on the use of restorative justice in domestic violence cases in South Asia. Her academic interests also include women empowerment issues in developing societies; role of NGOs in empowering women; conflict between empowerment of women and traditional patriarchal social and cultural values leading to religious fundamentalism and/or extremism; how state may affect women’s empowerment through public policies and laws especially in containing violence against women.