Omar Sharifi is a research fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. In addition, he is an assistant professor at the American University of Afghanistan, senior research fellow and Kabul director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, Asia Society fellow, and a member of Afghan 21 Young Leaders Forum.

Sharifi graduated from Kabul Medical Institute in 2003. Following his medical studies, he worked as head of research and publications for the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society in Kabul, and as director of the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan.

From 2006 to 2008, he studied cultural anthropology at Columbia University in New York under a Fulbright Fellowship. He completed his PhD in anthropology from Boston University in 2019. He recently joined the New School University Scholars in Exile Consortium.