With over 13.000 alumni worldwide, the IHS Alumni Network gathers international experts in urban development from across the globe. In this series we reconnect with some familiar faces and find out more about their professional path after graduation.
Meiraj began her career as an architect in Pakistan, working for two years at architectural and interior design firms. During this time, she began to notice a gap between built space, policy, and the wider urban and social issues in her field. The realisation led her to IHS, where she joined the Urban Management and Development master’s programme at IHS, specialising in Strategic Planning and Urban Policy.
Implementing ideas
At IHS, Meiraj had the opportunity to explore how planning and policy intersect in practice. Her main interest lay in understanding how ideas are translated into real-world action. It wasn’t just the theory that fascinated her, it was the reality of implementation; what works, what doesn’t, and why?
“I was mostly interested in how policies are implemented. We all talk and make plans, but what’s the actual process? How do we begin taking real action?” Meiraj reflect.
Through her studies, Meiraj began to focus on community engagement, not just as a concept but as a practical aspect of urban development. She looked back on her time at the institute fondly, as it provided a strong foundation for connecting theory with practice and shaped how she approached planning with a focus on people and place.
One of the things Meiraj missed most about IHS was its unique approach to teaching and the strong sense of collaboration among students and staff. Classes never felt like one-way lectures. Instead, students were encouraged to share their perspectives, creating an environment where everyone learned together.
“The professors never talk to you like you're ‘just a student’. It’s a back-and-forth. You're learning, and they're learning." Meiraj explains.
Meiraj remembers IHS as a welcoming and grounding community. Even after graduating, that sense of connection remains strong. To her, IHS is always a place she can return to for guidance, collaboration, or simply to reconnect.
LDE Thesis Lab
While at IHS, Meiraj joined the LDE Center for Sustainability Thesis Lab, a collaboration between Leiden, Delft, and Erasmus University. Due to the lab's specific focus, on the issue of Rural landscape transformation in the South Holland, her thesis topic had to be defined earlier than most of her peers at IHD. This meant she began working on her thesis as early as October, well before the usual start of the thesis period.
Her research took her to a small village in the horticulture cluster in the Westland municipality, just outside Rotterdam, which she used as her main case study. There, she worked on public space planning and explored the relationship between ethnic Dutch and migrant communities in the rural labor workforce in South Holland. Coming from the Global South, Meiraj saw how the experience differed from her previous exposure to migration and urbanisation. She was now focusing on Dutch peri-urban area fragmented planning, growing greenhouse sprawl, seasonal migrant labor, and how they all shaped and impacted community social cohesion.
She later presented her thesis findings with fellow lab partners at a symposium organised by the LDE for the Province of South Holland. Working on the final collaborative report with so many researchers on diverse topics gave her the chance to reflect more on whether this was the type of career path she wanted to pursue.
Preparing for what's to come
Motivated by this experience, Meiraj sent a paper proposal to the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy (JCCPE), which is published by the University of Toronto Press (UTP).
This paper was inspired by her observations on migrant labourers in South Holland and
the policies supporting their integration. The research made her reflect on internal labour migration
in Pakistan as well, particularly on the lack of protective laws and policies for rural-to-urban migrant
women
“If I want to engage more in research, I need to be where research is happening” Meiraj states.
After the proposal was accepted, she received approval to conduct further research. What had originally been planned as a holiday became a three-month period of intensive fieldwork in Pakistan. In Karachi and Lahore, she connected with migrant women, NGOs and researchers to explore how women, especially those previously involved in agriculture and small rural industries, adapt to urban life after being displaced by climate-related events. Drawing on ethnographic methods and policy analysis, her work examined resilience strategies, the role of informal labour and the kinds of adaptive economic and social policies that could better support migrant women in transitioning to urban economies.
Life in The Netherlands
Following her return to the Netherlands, Meiraj decided to stay close to her academic network and is currently preparing her research for publication. She is also applying for PhD programmes focused on migration, gender, and adaptation, looking at how women from vulnerable backgrounds navigate transitions in both the Global South and within European countries with integration policies such as the Netherlands.
Her current work in the retail sector has added a practical dimension to her research, providing insight into the European labour market and continuing to shape her perspective as she develops her PhD proposal. Through regular interaction with women from migrant backgrounds and engagement with NGOs such as the Kiran Foundation and NOW Communities, she has been able to connect everyday experiences to the broader themes explored in her academic work.
