Dr. Sanaa Alimia is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Aga Khan University's Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations in London. She is the author of Refugee Cities: Afghans in Urban Pakistan, which was published in 2022 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Her research interests are Afghanistan, Pakistan, geopolitics, surveillance, migration and cities. She is a former research fellow of the Leibniz Center Moderner Orient (2014-2019) and a former fellow of the Dahlem Research School Fellowship at the Free University of Berlin. She lives between Berlin and London.