I joined the Department of Social & Policy Sciences at Bath in 2009 and am Director of Studies for the 1st Year Programmes in Sociology, Social Sciences and Social Policy.

My main research interests are in studying the social policies and the welfare systems of the Middle East and North Africa region, with particular emphasis on the Arab and Muslim populations there. I also have a passionate interest for understanding the intersections between religion and public action which has filtered into my research on social policy both in the UK, MENA region and the world at large!

These two main lines of enquiry help me make links between social policy, international development and moral philosophy and feed into a much broader theoretical focus on the meanings of wellbeing, the drivers of social welfare action and the mutually constitutive relationship between religious identities and social change.

I am involved in a variety of academic research, consultancy and outreach activities on social policy in MENA. I am about to start work on a two year project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, in collaboration with the British Council and the Faculty of Political Science at Cairo University to conduct further research on and build capacity for social policy in the Arab region. I have just completed work as Principal Investigator on an ESRC standard grant which seeks to produce a mapping of the welfare systems of the MENA region based on the country case studies of Lebanon, Turkey and Iran. The project concluded with a policy workshop organized in collaboration with the Middle East Programme at Chatham House in November, 2014.

In 2013, I founded and am now convener of the MENA social policy network and MENA social policy blog. The network activities have been funded by a grant from the Council for British Research in the Levant. We hold a one of a kind bi-annual conference on social policy issues in the MENA region and run a virtual library which is hosted on the network website.

I was Treasurer of the UK Social Policy Association (SPA) between 2005 and 2012, and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Social Policy between 2009 and 2013. I have been a member of the editorial board of the BSA's Journal, Sociology since 2014. I am consulted for my work on the MENA region by various international agencies and governments in the MENA region.

Research interests

• Development policy in the MENA region
• Social protection and social policy in MENA
• Welfare theory and ethics
• Religion and social welfare action
• Culture and Social Policy
• Definitions of Poverty and Wellbeing
• Social movements

Current projects

• GW4 Accelerator Grant on Transnational Social Protection
• Social Policy in the Arab Region, 2 year, Carnegie Corporation, New York
• UNICEF Database on Social Policy Expertise in MENA

Consultancy projects

• Social Protection Policies in the North AFRCIAN Region – African Development Bank and International development Research Centre (Egypt)
• Social Policy in the MENA region – UNDP regional office for the Arab countries (Lebanon)

MENA Social Policy (MENASP) Network

In 2013, I founded and am now convener of the MENA social policy network and MENA social policy blog. The network activities have been funded by a grant from the Council for British Research in the Levant. We hold a one of a kind bi-annual conference on social policy issues in the MENA region and run a virtual library which hosted by the network website.

I have recently completed the supervision of an ESRC-linked project on Shi'a Welfare Organisations in Iraq by Janan Al Jabiri.

I am interested in supervising new PhD students researching these topics:

• Social policy and welfare systems in the MENA region
• Social protection policies in developing countries
• Social and economic inequalities in the MENA region
• The role of religion and religious organisations in social action and social welfare
• The role of the voluntary sector in social policy in the UK

I have recently completed the supervision of an ESRC-linked project on Shi'a Welfare Organisations in Iraq by Janan Al Jabiri.