I am a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, McGill University. My fields of studies are IR and comparative politics. More specifically, I am interested in the IPE of development and trade with a particular focus on firms and GVCs.

I hold an MA in Globalization and International Development from the School of International Development and Global Studies (SIDGS), University of Ottawa, and an MA in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA), Carleton University, with specialization in global political economy (GPE). For my BA degree, I studied International Economics and specialized in International Economic Relations.

My PhD thesis empirically examines the effect of trade liberalization on developing countries' (and their firms') capacity to participate in global value chains (GVCs). This work is supported by SSHRC Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship & McGill University.

I call Ottawa home, but I was born in Kabul and then a convention refugee elsewhere for over a decade. My first name is pronounced exactly as written: [Zar--lasht], where [sh] is the usual sound as in [she].