WASHINGTON — The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in collaboration with the Fellowship Fund for Pakistan (FFFP), today announced the appointment of Dr. Fouzia Saeed as the Wilson Center’s new Pakistan Scholar. Saeed will spend nine months in residence at the Wilson Center beginning in September 2014, working on a book on Pakistani women and how their successes at the micro-level have the potential to influence national policy and institutions.

Saeed is one of Pakistan’s most distinguished women’s rights activists. She has worked for decades on women’s issues, especially those linked to violence against women, prostitution, women’s mobility, and sexual harassment. She is the author of Taboo: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area, and Working with Sharks: Countering Sexual Harassment in Our Lives.

Saeed will succeed Khurram Husain, the Wilson Center’s 2013-14 Pakistan Scholar. During his stay at the Center, Husain worked on a book looking at the political economy of reform in Pakistan over the past two decades.

The Pakistan Scholar Program is the center point of the Wilson Center’s Pakistan initiative. The fellowship competition is open to men and women from Pakistan or of Pakistani origin. Applicants must be based in Pakistan. Applications are accepted from individuals in academia, business, journalism, government, law, and related professions. Candidates must be currently pursuing research on key public policy issues facing Pakistan, research designed to bridge the gap between the academic and the policy making worlds. The selection process is a two-tier process, consisting of application evaluation and personal interviews conducted by an independent, international Advisory Council of the FFFP, composed of eminent individuals from the fields of politics, diplomacy, business, economics, academia, and journalism, and followed by final selection by a Wilson Center selection panel.

The Fellowship Fund for Pakistan, a charitable trust based in Karachi, was established in 2003 to provide Pakistan’s most eminent thinkers with opportunities to participate in international deliberations on current and future issues facing Pakistan through dialogue with global opinion leaders and policymakers, scholars, and other experts. FFFP seeks to promote non-partisan scholarship at international forums in order to encourage free, informed, and serious dialogue on issues of public interest.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the living, national memorial to President Wilson, created by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policy making and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world.