Kamran Asdar Ali has conducted long term field work in Egypt and in Pakistan and has frequently contributed to the media on recent Pakistani politics. He is associate professor of anthropology and Director of the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. He is also the current President of American Instutte of Pakistan Studies (2014-2017, second term). Ali is the author of Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (UT Press, 2002). He is the co-editor of Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa (Palgrave 2008), Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia (Oxford 2009) and Gender, Politics, and Performance in South Asia (Oxford 2015). He has published several articles on issues of health and gender in Egypt and on ethnicity, class politics, sexuality and popular culture in Pakistan. He has previously taught at the University of Rochester (1995-2001). He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1998-99) and a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (2010-2011). His recent book is Communism in Pakistan: Politics and Class Activism 1947-1972 (I.B Tauris 2015).