Rounaq Jahan joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1990 as a Senior Research Scholar at the Southern Asian Institute and as an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs. She has taught graduate courses on Women and Development: Key Policy Issues (1991-1995), Gender, Politics and Development (1998), and Arsenic Crisis in Bangladesh (2000). 

Professor Jahan's research is concentrated on gender and development, governance, health, and politics of Bangladesh.  Among her books are Bangladesh: Promise and Performance (editor, London: Zed Books and Dhaka: University Press, Ltd., 2000), The Elusive Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Development (London: Zed Books, 1995), Bangladesh Politics: Problems and Issues (Dhaka: University Press, Ltd, 1980), Women and Development: Perspectives from South and South-East Asia (Co-editor, Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs, 1979), Pakistan: Failure in National Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972).  She is also the author of numerous articles published in edited books and academic journals.

Rounaq Jahan received a BA and an MA (1963) in Political Science from Dhaka University, Bangladesh.  In 1968 she received an MA in Political Science from Harvard University, from where she also earned her PhD in 1970.  From 1970 to 1993 she taught at Dhaka University, Bangladesh where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Comparative Politics, Political Development, and Research Methodology, as well as supervised MPhil and PhD theses.  From 1973 to 1975 she chaired the Political Science Department at the University.

In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Rounaq Jahan has a very active professional career.  While at Dhaka University, Bangladesh, between 1970 and 1993 she served in an advisory capacity on several policy-making bodies established by the Government of Bangladesh in the field of education, culture, rural development, women, and population.  In the period between 1985-1989 she was the Head of the Programme on Rural Women, Employment and Development Department at the International Labor Organization (ILO), Geneva, Switzerland.  For two years in 1982 Professor Jahan was the Coordinator of the Programme on Integration of Women in Development, United Nations Asia Pacific Development Centre (APDC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  She has been a Research Fellow at the CHR-Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway in 1979, and at the Department of Political Science and Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago (1975-76), a Visiting Fellow at Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago (1980), a Senior Research Associate at Center for Asian Development Studies, Boston University (1978), and a Research Associate at the Center for International Affairs and Kennedy Institute, Harvard University (1971-72).  Professor Jahan has been a consultant to UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, UNICEF, UNCDF, SIDA, NORAD, USAID, OECD, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation and non-profit organizations such as International Women's Health Coalition.  She has been a member of many organizations and associations, among which are the Advisory Board, Human Rights Watch: Asia, New York, the Board of Trustees, The Population Council, the International Council of the Asia Society, the Advisory Committee on Rural Development, International Labor Organization, and a Representative of Bangladesh to the 32nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 1977.