Kazi Maruful Islam is a professor of governance and politics at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Centre on Budget and Policy of Dhaka University. Previously he taught University of Rajshahi where he served as the Chair of Public Administration. Working in the development field since 1998, Prof Islam has spent most of his career in teaching and development research. He looks at politics of development, manifested in different areas of concerns in a postcolonial context. His areas of expertise include health governance, local governance, political institutions, political violence and climate change policy. He was actively involved in drafting Decentralisation Policy for Democratic Local Governance submitted to the government. He currently teaches Politics and Public Administration, Public Policy Analysis, Poverty and Inequality, and Qualitative Research Methodology. He chairs Governance and Resilience Research Group at the Department. He received his MPhil from University of Bergen, Norway and PhD from University of Heidelberg, Germany with DAAD Scholarship.

Dr Islam is a reviewer of several international journals. He is a member of South Asian Governance Research Network, International Association of Public Policy Analysis, Executive Committee Members of Democratic Budget Movement, Bangladesh, Democratic Local Government Forum, Governance Advocacy Forum and Bangladesh Citizens Network on Climate Change and Convenor of Bangladesh Working Group on External Debt.