Asad Pabani is a journalist and researcher based in Karachi, Pakistan. He is currently a Research Analyst at the consulting firm Acasus where he works with multilateral institutions, and donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to improve education service delivery in low- and middle-income countries. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Macro Pakistani, an economic analysis publication funded by the South Asia Institute at Harvard University. 

Previously, he was the co-founder of the digital media platform Soch Videos. His work included interviews with the Federal Ministers for Health and Climate Change, and he was selected as one of three finalists for the UK Foreign Press Association’s Young Journalist Award in 2018 due to his reporting on enforced disappearances by law enforcement agencies in Karachi. Additionally, he has served as a research consultant on projects for the Collective for Social Science Research and the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. 

Asad graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a BA in Political Science and Sociology. His academic career and work experience has primarily focused on examining suboptimality in urban policymaking, and its implications for working class and marginalised communities. As a Donald F. McHenry Fellow, Asad hopes to use his GHD experience to explore case studies of urban revival from across the Global South, with a view to creating inclusive and sustainable cities in Pakistan.