Irfan Ahmed Nazir is a social scientist, academic, and qualitative researcher based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). He has over five years of experience designing and conducting interdisciplinary research on politics, education, migration, international relations, and the Middle East and South Asia. He currently teaches Emirates studies and global history at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, Dubai Campus. He was a visiting scholar at the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research in Ras Al Khaimah (2023–2024) and was among the first cohort of recipients of a travel grant from the Humanities Research Fellowships for the Study of the Arab World at New York University Abu Dhabi (Spring 2023).
Irfan holds a PhD in West Asian / Middle Eastern studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi (2026), where he examined debates on national identity in the UAE and their implications for school education. His broader research interests include state–society relations in the Middle East and South Asia; India’s engagements with the Middle East; migration and diaspora dynamics along the South Asia–Gulf corridor; and education policy and expatriate schooling in the Arab Gulf states.
Irfan’s research has been published by leading academic publishers, including Wiley, SAGE, Routledge, and Bloomsbury. He has presented his work at conferences, workshops, seminars, and invited lectures, and has participated in podcast interviews and other public-facing forums, engaging diverse audiences of students, academics, and practitioners. Since June 2026, he has been curating the India–Gulf Digest, a monthly digest on India’s relations with the Arab Gulf states, as part of his public-engagement efforts. The digest is available on LinkedIn and his personal website.
Born and raised in Dubai as a second-generation Indian expatriate, Irfan completed his school education in the UAE. He received a bachelor’s degree in history, economics, and political science from Christ University, Bengaluru (2018), and a master’s degree in politics and international relations from JNU (2021). His family hails from the Thrissur district of Keralam, India, and he is bilingual in English and Malayalam. Outside academia, he enjoys exploring urban landscapes, local cuisines, and heritage sites. He is also an amateur cat photographer and shares his photography on Instagram at @catsbyirfan.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4150-6118
