Sara Bazoobandi is a Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies and an Associate Research Fellow at ISPI. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Prior to this, she was a senior lecturer in International Political Economy at Regent’s University London and a Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore. Bazoobandi has contributed to various global research projects on political, economic, and social affairs of the Middle East and North Africa. She was an Associate Fellow at the MENA program of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and served as a member of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa. She holds a PhD in Arab and Islamic studies from Exeter University, an MSc in economic development in emerging markets from the University of Reading and speaks Persian, English, Arabic and German.