Masooda Bano holds an ESRC/AHRC fellowship at the department of International Development and Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Her current research focuses on rise of female Islamic education movements in Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. Prior to starting this new research, Dr Bano undertook comparative studies of demand for madrasas in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and studied the political economy of madrasa reform programmes in the three countries. She is the co-editor of Women, Leadership and Mosques (Brill 2012)

Her book 'The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan' is forthcoming with Cornell University Press.