M Niaz Asadullah is a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Reading, UK; an Adjunct Professor at the College of Population Studies (CPS), Thailand; a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics and serves as the Southeast Asia Lead for the Global Labor Organization (GLO). His academic career includes a decade in Malaysia, where he was a Professor of Economics at Monash University Malaysia and the University of Malaya, serving at the latter as Deputy Director of the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS). His research career also includes positions with the Research and Evaluation Division (RED) of BRAC and the Institute of Governance Studies at BRAC University. He has held visiting researcher positions at Harvard University’s Center for International Development, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), the University of Manchester, and Mindanao State University in the Philippines. In addition to his academic work, he has held several high-level policy advisory positions across South and Southeast Asia. In 2025, he served the Interim Government of Bangladesh as Head of the Taskforce on ICT Sector Corruption and as a Member of the Manpower Sector Taskforce. His prior experience includes serving as an Advisor to the Minister for Food and Agriculture (MAFI), Government of Malaysia, and as an Advisor on Behavioural Insights for the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC). His research focuses on the economics of education, labor, gender, and governance, with a specific emphasis on South and Southeast Asia.