Dr. Farhana Afrin Rahman is an interdisciplinary scholar of gender, development, and forced migration, with over 15 years of experience in academia, international development organizations, and the policy sector. Her work draws on feminist and postcolonial approaches to examine lived experiences, humanitarianism, and the dynamics of power, care, and community across the Global South.

She is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow/Isaac Newton Trust Fellow and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies. Previously, she was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge, a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo, a Non-Residential Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies at the University of Auckland, and a Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center. Farhana received her PhD in 2021 from the University of Cambridge's Centre for Gender Studies. Her PhD thesis was shortlisted for the 2023 International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Best Dissertation Prize, and received the accolade "Most Accessible and Captivating Work for the Non-Specialist Reader". She also holds an MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge (2014), and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies, International Relations, and Arabic from the University of Toronto (2011).

Farhana's first book, After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh's Rohingya Refugee Camps (Cambridge University Press, 2024), won the 2025 L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize from the British International Studies Association. Her peer-reviewed articles and chapters have been published in various journals and edited volumes, including Journal of Refugee Studies, Feminist Review, and Journal of International Women's Studies. She has received competitive scholarships/grants for her research from several international funding bodies, including the Cambridge International Trust, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the UNESCO Silk Roads Programme, amongst others.

Farhana co-founded Silkpath Relief Organization – a non-profit providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan, and to refugee populations in Bangladesh and Malaysia. In 2015, she helped establish the first academic program in gender studies in Afghanistan, based at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, where she was Adjunct Professor of Gender Studies. Since 2012, Farhana has worked as a consultant for organizations such as UNDP and UN Women, providing technical expertise and trainings on gender equality, social policy, and human rights for various projects across the Global South. In recognition of her contributions to the field of gender and development, she received the 2021 Paula Kantor Award from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

Farhana was born in Bangladesh and raised in Zambia and Canada. She is an avid traveller and has visited over 60 countries.