The Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS) has recently re-elected Professor Ali Riaz as President and Professor Rebecca Manring as Vice President of the organization’s Executive Committee for the 2024-2028 term.

Both leaders have successfully completed their first terms in these roles and were re-elected in participatory elections, with the Presidential election held in May and the Vice-Presidential election taking place in August of this year, said AIBS.

The elections were conducted by AIBS Secretary Professor Dina Siddiqi, who chaired the Nomination Committee.

Professor Ali Riaz, a distinguished political scientist specializing in South Asian politics, democratization, violent extremism, and Bangladeshi politics, expressed his commitment to enhancing the profile of AIBS and contributing to the vibrant Bangladesh studies community in both the United States and Bangladesh during his second term.

He is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Illinois State University, a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, and has held notable positions such as Visiting Researcher at the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) in Sweden (2023) and Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2013).

Professor Riaz's recent publications include Pathways for Autocratization: The Tumultuous Journey of Bangladeshi Politics (2024) and The Charade: Bangladesh’s 2024 Election (2024).

Professor Rebecca Manring, a Professor of India Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington and Director of Language Instruction at the Dhar India Studies Program, will continue as Vice President of AIBS. She also chairs the Language Committee of the American Institute of Indian Studies and the South Asian Summer Language Institute.

With extensive experience in Bangla language programs and research in Bangladesh, Professor Manring's work has included preserving the Sukumar Sen manuscript collection and producing scholarly publications such as Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Acarya and Gaudiya Vaishnavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century (2005) and The Fading Light of Advaita Acarya (2011).

Her recent translation of Rūprām Cakravartī’s Dharma-maṅgala will be published in the Texts and Translation series of Oxford University Press.