I joined Tufts University as a tenured full professor in the fall of 1999. Since 2003, I have held a joint appointment at the History Department and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and am currently the holder of the Mary Richardson chair. After double majoring in history and political science from Wellesley College in 1978, I went to the United Kingdom where I received my doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge in 1983. I was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1980-84), Leverhulme Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (1984-87), Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC (1985-86) and Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies (1988-90). Between 1998-2003, I was a MacArthur Fellow. I have taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tufts University, Columbia University, and Harvard University.
Among her books are:
Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)
Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since c.1850s (London and New York, Routledge, 2000; Delhi: Oxford University Press and Lahore: Sang-e-Meel, 2001)
Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, joint author with Sugata Bose second edition. (London: Routledge, 2004, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, joint editor with Sugata Bose, joint author of introduction and author of article Exploding Communalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997)
Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: a Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 in hardcover and paperback; Indian edition by New Delhi: Foundation Books, 1995; and Pakistani edition by Lahore: Sang-e-Meel, 1995) The State of Martial Rule: the Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Pakistani hardcover and paperback editions by Lahore: Vanguard Press, 1991; Indian hardcover edition by New Delhi: Foundation Books, 1992)
Ayesha has been a friend for all the three decades I directed the Institute. She has served wonderfully on our boards and revised processes, I am indebted to her for my ability to create the Colloquium on South Asia. We collaborated on a range of individual programs, ranging from the reaction to the Mumbai terror attack, the program of the Southeast Asia studies program and have shared a number of thesis students. She is among the people that I admire most in academia, for not only is she a remarkable scholar, but her diligence with her students is extraordinary. She is precise and demanding with a very soft, human touch and cares deeply about democracy and human rights.