Maliha Zulfacar (born 1961) is an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

university professor and was the ambassador of Afghanistan to Germany from 2006 to 2010.

Early life

Zulfacar was born in 1961 in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

, the capital of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. Her father was a diplomat. After completing her school education, she moved to Germany and attended the

Braunschweig University of Technology Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

. She did her B.A., M.A. and PhD in sociology from

Western College for Women Western College for Women, known at other times as Western Female Seminary, The Western and simply Western College, was a women's and later coed liberal arts college in Oxford, Ohio, between 1855 and 1974. Initially a seminary, it was the host of ...

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,0 ...

and

Paderborn University Paderborn University (german: Universität Paderborn) is one of the fourteen public research universities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It was founded in 1972 and 20,308 students were enrolled at the university in the winter ...

respectively.

Career

Zulfacar taught sociology at the

Kabul University Kabul University (KU; prs, دانشگاه کابل, translit= Dāneshgāh-e-Kābul; ps, د کابل پوهنتون, translit=Da Kābul Pohantūn) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd ...

till 1979. She left the country following the Soviet invasion and settled in Germany for a brief period before moving to the United States. In the US, she joined the faculty of California Polytechnic State University. She has also served as the director of the

American Institute of Afghanistan Studies The American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS), founded in 2003, is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the advanced study of Afghanistan in the United States. The institute is housed at Boston University in Massachusetts. The ...

and her book ''Afghan Immigrants in the USA and Germany'' was published in 1998. After returning to Afghanistan in 2001, Zulfacar participated in the 2002 loya jirga to elect the transitional administration. In November 2006, she was appointed the ambassador of Afghanistan to Kabul, a post she held until 2010. She has also produced and directed two documentaries on life in Afghanistan.

References

External links

* 1961 births Living people People from Kabul Academic staff of Kabul University Technical University of Braunschweig alumni Ambassadors of Afghanistan to Germany California Polytechnic State University faculty University of Cincinnati alumni Western College for Women alumni Afghan film directors Afghan documentary film directors Afghan women ambassadors 20th-century Afghan women writers 21st-century Afghan women writers Women documentary filmmakers Afghan women academics {{Afghanistan-diplomat-stub