Tasnia is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science, an Ashley T. Judd Distinguished PhD Scholar, and an OPSVAW (Office for Policy Studies on Violence against Women) research fellow. Her research focuses on comparative political behavior, international political economy, and human rights with a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia. In her dissertation, she centers on social context and hierarchical identity groups to explore gendered attitudes toward retributive justice towards violence against women in illiberal democratic settings. This is part of her book project, which examines intergroup bias among religious and partisan groups through a comparative analysis of liberal and illiberal democratic systems. 

Her other ongoing projects include investigating the impact of US-China foreign aid and strategic U.S. FDI on democratic governance and human rights in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as its implications for U.S. national security (with Horace Bartilow). She is leading an original research project exploring the challenges of humanitarian-security collaboration in addressing gender-based violence in the Rohingya refugee camp, with a focus on United Nations workers’ perspectives and institutional dynamics. 

She earned her M.A. in Economics from Eastern Illinois University (EIU). She received a fully funded IKEA-Netherlands Scholarship (2011–2015) for her B.A. in Economics at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Tasnia’s teaching portfolio includes core Economics and Political Science courses, advanced interdisciplinary courses, and region-specific offerings. She has taught in the Economics Department at EIU and in the Political Science department and International Studies program at UK. In her teaching, she emphasizes simplifying complex theoretical and statistical concepts for her students.