Fatima Zahra

Fatima Zahra is an associate at the GIRL Center and is based in Washington, DC. She is a social demographer who specializes in transitions to adulthood in low- and middle-income countries. Her research on adolescents focuses on gender, education, health, and child marriage. Relatedly, she also examines how adolescent transitions are linked with early childhood conditions and intergenerational outcomes.

In her current work, she is the technical lead on a range of projects including evaluations of child marriage interventions, a systematic review examining causal links between education and health, and measure development for adolescent economic empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prior to joining the Council, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. As part of a project on adolescents in Malawi, her research focused on child marriage norms and aspirations, and the relationship between early life conditions and adolescent educational outcomes.

Zahra holds a PhD in sociology with a specialization in demography from the University of Maryland, and also earned a Master’s in communication with a focus on health and social change communication from the University of Southern California.