He headed the Economics Department at LUMS between 2005 and 2010. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in governance at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), the co-lead academic of the University of Oxford and London School of Economic-led International Growth Centre’s (IGC) Pakistan program and a founding member of the Centre of Economic Research in Pakistan. Dr.Cheema graduated in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and did his PhD in Economics at Cambridge. He was a Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2010-11. Dr. Cheema is an internationally recognized scholar on skills and labor markets, governance and political economy.