Dr. Omar Sharifi is a member of the Advisory Board of the Civil Society Development Center; a member of the Board of Directors of the Afghan Alumni Association and Afghanistan 1400; a member of Afghan 21 Young Leaders Forum; and is an Asia Society Fellow. In the past, Dr. Sharifi worked as a Senior Research Fellow and the Kabul Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies. After graduating from Kabul Medical Institute in 2003, Dr. Sharifi worked as Head of Research and Publications for the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society in Kabul, and as Director of the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan. Dr. Sharifi holds a PhD from Boston University’s Department of Anthropology (2017) and received his MA in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 2008. He has written several essays on social and political issues in Afghanistan that are published in both national and international journals.