Dr. Durre S. Ahmed is Chairperson and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Gender and Culture, Lahore, Pakistan.
From 1976-2009 she taught at the National College of Arts, Pakistan’s premier arts institution where she was Professor of Psychology and Communication, Head of Department and Director, Graduate Program in Cultural Studies. An internationally acknowledged expert on gender and Islam, her interdisciplinary interests include the social-psychology of religion, particularly Islam, and she has extensively researched the psychology of women’s spirituality and issues related to gender, culture, religion and science in the context of Muslim societies. Apart from numerous research papers, and book chapters, she is the author of Masculinity, Rationality and Religion: A Feminist Perspective, editor and contributing author of Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion and Postcolonial Response, and a six volume series on Women and Religion. Since 1990, she has been engaged in researching and teaching socio-psychological and transnational cultural dimensions of Islam and Muslims in Europe at various universities, educational and public institutions. Dr. Ahmed was awarded the Fatima Jinnah Memorial Gold Medal by the Government of the Punjab, Pakistan, for outstanding contributions to education and research (2008), the Izzaz-i-Fazeelat President of Pakistan Award for Academic distinction (2009), and other international and national recognitions. She has served as a juror of the Commonwealth Writers Prize (2009), as an International Advisor, John Templeton Foundation, and as one of nine judges worldwide for the Templeton Prize for Religion (2009-2012). She is a Member, Executive Committee, Board of Governors National College of Arts, Lahore, and Chair of the Annemarie Schimmel Scholarship Committee, a high ranking scholarship awarded annually to outstanding Pakistani women for graduate study in Britain. Dr. Ahmed holds Master’s degrees in Psychology (Pb); Sociology (Columbia); Communication (Columbia), Education (Columbia) and a Doctorate in Communication and Education (Columbia). She is also a practicing psychotherapist.
