Umair Rasheed graduated from our program in December 2014. He completed his undergraduate studies in Politics and Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences in 2009. Upon graduating, he joined the then newly-launched English language newspaper, The Express Tribune, as a sub editor on its Lahore city desk. His work as a print journalist provided him with useful lessons about the society and politics in the Punjab province of Pakistan. He left the Tribune to join the research unit of a non-government organization, Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) Pakistan, in 2012. Umair's areas of academic interests include religious militancy, its political economy as well as its sectarian roots in the Deobandi Islam, and the "civil society" as it is known in the development sector (community-based organizations which have mushroomed after the summer floods of 2010) of Pakistan.