Sarah Umer is an associate professor in the College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab Lahore, the oldest university of Pakistan. Prior to her current role, she was teaching at Lahore College for Women, the largest women’s university in Pakistan and one of the largest in South Asia. In 2016, Umer received a PhD from Lahore College for Women with a dissertation on the religious beliefs of the Indus Valley people, a subject that was scarcely tackled by scholars. Her research includes the study of art, ancient civilizations, and religions, predominantly in the South Asian region. Thus, her publications, conference papers and other activities including her book entitled, “Religious Beliefs of the Indus Valley Civilization,” reflect her interest. In early 2017, as a recipient of a Charles Wallace Fellowship, she probed her dissertation topic further at SOAS, University of London to find religious linkages with Mesopotamia. However, today her research area has expanded from Mesopotamia to the Greater Arab world.
Currently as a Fulbright Fellow at the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University, she intends to probe the influence of Harappan religious inheritance not only in the early strata of Hinduism but also in the religious thought prevalent in the Greater Arab world considering a hypothesis that the Harappans might be the parent stock of Mesopotamians. She has also been the recipient of the CAA-Getty International Program travel grant in 2018 to attend the CAA conference in LA, USA.
In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, Umer organizes seminars and workshops with universities and museums on a national and international level. One such seminar and exhibition series was recently initiated on the eminent artists of the College of Art and Design, as part of a study-based activity executed by current research scholars of the college to preserve and promote the art of Pakistan.
