Hasna received a B.A. from the University of Dhaka and M.A. from the University of Dayton, Ohio. She received an International Writing Program Grant from the University of Iowa and shortly after became a member of the UN Youth Assembly on Environment in 1972. Hasna worked at UNDP as a development journalist and at the US Committee as a Field Director. In 1992, Hasna was awarded the United Nations Environment Programme Award Global 500 Laureate at the UN Earth Summit in Rio De Janiro.
Hasna has had a distinguished academic career. In 1992-94, she was a Visiting Scholar at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, and in 1999-2001 a Visiting Scholar at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House at the University of Oxford in 2008, before becoming a Visiting Scholar at The Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University from 2008-2009. She became a Visiting Professor at the University of Development Alternative in Dhaka in 2009, and a Visiting Scholar at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg in 2009 and Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center between 2011-12. Hasna was twice elected to Bangladesh Parliament from 1987-90.
Hasna has written several books, including:
- Where Women Rule: South Asia, Haranand, Delhi, 2017
- Mystical Poetry of Bangladesh, Haranand, Delhi, 2017
- Revisiting China After 32 Years, 2011
- Eastern Himalayan Culture, Ecology and People, 2001
- A Thousand Year Old Bengali Mystic Poetry, 1992
- Women in China, Vikas, New Delhi
