Omar Sharifi

Omar Sharifi lived in Afghanistan throughout his youth, including the civil war years and the Taliban regime. Despite being passionately interested in history and social sciences, he studied medicine and became a doctor, because of the civil war. In 2003 he helped establish the Afghan Foundation for Culture and Civil Society and became head of the research and publications department there. From 2006 to 2008 he studied anthropology in Columbia University. He is currently head of the American Institute for Afghan Studies in Kabul, assisting Western social sciences researchers in their investigations in Afghanistan.