Adil Hossain is a DPhil candidate in International Development at Merton College, University of Oxford, where he holds the Merton-QEH scholarship.

His academic background is multidisciplinary, having received his undergraduate degree in Geography and an MA in Mass Communication from Aligarh Muslim University, India. Thereafter he secured a Commonwealth Scholarship to study another master's degree in Anthropology of Development and Rights at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Apart from academics, he had a background in journalism before starting his research at Oxford and previously published political and developmental pieces with many media organisations including Guardian, Scroll, Fair Observer, Sunday Guardian, Catch News, DNA etc.

He was previously known in India due to his Right to Information (RTI) activism and Indian magazine Outlook in 2010 profiled him as one of the top five youth RTI activists in the country.

Honours and Awards

2014-15 Awarded Merton-QEH full scholarship at University of Oxford to pursue DPhil

2012-13 Awarded Commonwealth Shared Scholarship for master’s in UK

2012-13 Selected as a of the first batch of Ambassadors by London University International Partnership programme

2013 Longlisted in Guardian International Development Journalism competition

2010 Profiled as India’s leading ‘young RTI activist’ by Outlook magazine.