Thaer is an analyst at Open Development & Education and the EdTech Hub. He is currently also a PhD candidate at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University. Thaer completed an MPhil in 2019 and an MA in 2017 at the same department, and he also holds a BS in Applied Physics from Columbia University.

Thaer is also completing his PhD at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University (estimated date of completion: May, 2023). Thaer’s PhD dissertation asks how class and capital may be retheorized as performative effects in the context of the colonization of southeastern Syria in the late Ottoman era and the subsequent British colonization, and establishment, of (Trans)Jordan. Related areas of interest include premodern moral cosmologies, the relationship between technologies of colonization and technologies of capitalization, economic theology, and the multiple modalities of ideology’s material existence.

At OpenDevEd, Thaer has worked on a range of topic areas, including distance learning strategies, engagement strategies, girls’ education, community mobilisation, feasibility assessments, and resource mapping.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Full list of publications here