Dr. Aliya Assubayeva is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, at Nazarbayev University. Trained in water management, agricultural economics, and public policy. Prior to her current role, she worked as a Research Associate at the Center for International Development and Environmental Research (ZEU), Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.

Dr. Assubayeva’s professional journey includes extensive field research, teaching, and mentorship across diverse geographical regions, including Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, and East Africa. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Nazarbayev University, focusing her doctoral research on Central Asia’s water security and water policies. Her research interests lie at the intersection of water security, transboundary cooperation, environmental governance and policy, and SDGs.

She received the NU Teaching Award in 2021 in the category of Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for Teaching Excellence (Kazakhstan). In 2022, she was awarded the JLU Early Career Researcher Grant (Germany) and the OSCE Academy Research Fellowship (Kyrgyzstan). Dr. Assubayeva received the PCMO Postdoctoral Grant (Germany) in 2024 and the Erasmus+ Grant for Teaching Mobility at Makerere University in Uganda in 2024. Additionally, she participated in the Mentoring Hessen ‘Frauen in Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft’ program in Germany from 2023 to 2024.

Dr. Assubayeva is the Associate Editor of the Central Asian Journal of Water Research and an External Member at ZEU. She is the Principal Investigator of the Water Governance Cluster at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Kazakhstan and Co-Principal Investigator of the DAAD-funded SDG^nexus Network project, which is a global community of universities, research centres and stakeholders dedicated to advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.