About Me

I am a sociologist by training and profession.  I received my doctorate in Sociology in 1989 from Jamia Millia, a central university, in New Delhi, India.  I started teaching graduate and undergraduate courses there in 1988.  I moved to United States in 1995 and have been teaching since 1997 at Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan.  My research interests have been Social Transformation, Minorities, and their intra-ethnic differences.  My first book, Muslim Society in Transition, a case study of Hyderabad, was published in 1990 and 1992.  It focuses on an ethnic Muslim community from Hyderabad, India.  It is a study of social changes and adjustments that followed the independence of India, the oil boom in the Middle-east, and their impact on Hyderabadi Muslims.  My research interest in this community led me to study them as immigrants to American society.  I did a project comparing Hyderabadi Muslims here in the U.S. to their counterparts in India.  That is when I developed interest in studying other immigrants and their paces and patterns of acculturation in America.

Being an immigrant myself and experiencing challenges of immigration in acculturation, parenting and family dynamics, I turned towards Applied Sociology.  I have been affiliated with various social service agencies as an acculturation specialist and designed acculturation workshops for schools, head start programs and health and human service agencies.

My experiences of working with six different groups of immigrants that include Arabic, Bosnian, Bangladeshi, Chaldean, Indian and Pakistani led to my publication of a chapter “Mainstreaming Immigrant Children through Parallel Socialization Workshops" in Dr. Mary Cay Sengstock's edited book Voices of Diversity.  This chapter talks about my acculturation workshops, their challenges and outcomes.

This website "Trans-Cultural Bridges" depicts my ongoing efforts to promote cultural relativism and pluralistic approach to social understanding and integration.

While working in this area as an Applied Sociologist, I teach conventional Sociology at Wayne State University, giving my students an understanding of these concepts and their application to American society.