Nishat Tasnim

Nishat Tasnim is a PhD student in Political Science (American Politics & Public Policy) at the University of Kansas, where she serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Her research centers on welfare policy, with a focus on evaluation methods for state level prevention programs. She previously served as an Assistant Researcher Senior with KU's Center for Public Partnerships and Research (CPPR), where she led evaluation of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) in partnership with the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

Before coming to KU, Nishat earned a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Strauss Fellow, and undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from the University of Dhaka. Her prior work spans international development and impact evaluation, including roles at BRAC, the world's largest NGO and the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) unit, where she conducted field research projects across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nishat's research interests include gender and politics, financial inclusion for women, welfare policy, program evaluation, mixed-methods research design, and social safety net programs in both domestic and international contexts.