Her Story
About Sabahat
Sabahat Zafar serves as an Assistant Policy Researcher and PhD candidate at the RAND Corporation, where she focuses on economics, policy, and fiscal policy. Based in Sugar Land, Texas, she brings over 17 years of professional experience to her role, including 15 years as deputy director in the research cluster at the central bank of her home country. Her academic credentials include a Master's in Economics from the University of Karachi obtained in 2004, a Master's in Applied Economics from the Applied Economic Research Center at the University of Karachi in 2008, a Master of Public Administration from SIPA at Columbia University in 2018, an MPhil in Policy Analysis from the RAND School of Public Policy, and ongoing pursuit of a PhD in Economic Policy at the RAND School of Public Policy in her third year. Zafar attributes her success to hard work and motivation despite a challenging path and values integrity, truthfulness, and honesty in both her professional and personal life. She advises patience in career advancement and emphasizes thorough research before utilizing AI tools.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sabahat
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to hard work and motivation. I've been on a really struggling path throughout my life, and that motivation keeps me doing all the study stuff and policy stuff.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I received was to be patient. There would be a right time for you when you can excel, and the time will definitely come.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
You have to have the understanding of what the problem you are facing. You have to have all the background information and literature from anything available to you. You should have a really nice grasp of that thing, and then afterwards you can include all the AIs and tools, but at first you need to just search it a lot. Research is always important.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
AI is both a challenge and opportunity. Many routine tasks and jobs can be replaced by AI, like analyzing data and generating reports. The challenge is to go beyond AI's capacity, and the opportunity is to use AI for basic steps so you can focus on more complex analysis without wasting time on basics.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity, truthfulness, and honor are most important. You have to be honest with yourself, with your work, in your family, and with the people you are working with all the time. Honesty is not always a sweet thing, but you have to speak up if the work is not in favor of a major milestone because the end result matters.
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