Biography

Nazima is undertaking the Master of Environment at the University of Melbourne for 2012-2013, with a specialization in Climate Change. She is from Pakistan and before continuing her education in Australia, she studied the environment as part of her first post graduate degree from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan (2004). After that, Nazima was associated with a national independent policy and research think tank: Sustainable Development Policy Institute (2005-2011) and an international development organization- ActionAid (2011). During her six years of association with SDPI, she worked on various development issues including environmental health, gender and environment, forestry, helping to develop a national level database of polluted sites, and air pollution in South Asian. While she worked as a policy officer at ActionAid Pakistan, her main responsibility was to promote the right to quality education through policy research, analysis, and advocacy.

Research

Nazima is interested in “Assessing the vulnerability of marginalized groups and its policy implications in the face of floods in Pakistan” as part of her Masters degree. The main aim of this research is to conduct vulnerability assessments of selected disadvantaged groups – including women small farmers – in response to floods in Pakistan. Another objective is to propose policy recommendations to government for improved flood adaptation/mitigation approaches. She will examine the vulnerability of selected women small farmers within the framework of political ecology, which is well-suited for studying environmental disasters and power relations. Her personal research interests are to study the vulnerability of marginalized groups, especially women, in a changing environment.