About

Samina Luthfa is a university teacher, researcher, activist, theatre actor, and playwright in Bangladesh. She completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the Department of Sociology at the University of Dhaka, followed by an MA at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA. Later, she earned her D.Phil from the University of Oxford, UK.

Luthfa is a founding member of the Dhaka-based theatre troupe Bottala—A Performance Space. She has authored and co-authored several books and plays, and has made significant contributions to the field of Sociology. Her body of work includes numerous research papers and journal articles focusing on labor rights, social movements, political ecology, environmental justice, and feminism. She has been an active advocate for human rights, women’s rights, and labor rights since 2000.

Born in 1976 in Mymensingh, Luthfa is the daughter of Dr. Lutfur Rahman and the late Dr. Lutfun Hussain, both of whom were professors at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU). Raised on the BAU campus, she attended K.B. High School in Mymensingh before completing her higher secondary education at Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, Dhaka.

Luthfa began her teaching career as a part-time lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Dhaka immediately after completing her Master’s. From 2002 to 2007, she taught in the Department of Rural Sociology at Bangladesh Agricultural University. After serving as a senior lecturer at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) for two years, she joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Dhaka in 2008 as an Assistant Professor. Currently, she serves as a Professor at the university.

Throughout her distinguished career, Samina Luthfa has been the recipient of numerous prestigious honors and scholarships that reflect her academic excellence and commitment to social change. Her early academic brilliance was recognized in 1998 when she was awarded both the Nazmul Karim Gold Medal and the Nurunnesa Khatun Bidda-Binodini Gold Medal. Her pursuit of international scholarship began in 2004 with the Junior Fulbright Scholarship, followed by the highly competitive Commonwealth Scholarship in 2008, which supported her doctoral research in the United Kingdom. In addition to her academic accolades, she was honored in 2019 with the British Council’s “Balance for Better” award, recognizing her significant contributions to gender equality and her unwavering advocacy for a more just and balanced society.