Maha A. Khalil

Maha Ahmed Khalil Nouman, PhD (Maha Khalil) is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, and a senior policy practitioner specializing in gender studies, public policy analysis, governance reform, and entrepreneurship ecosystem development. She currently serves as Deputy Director of the Egypt Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EEIC) at the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (NIGSD), Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, where she contributes to national efforts to strengthen innovation-driven, inclusive, and gender-responsive entrepreneurship.
Dr. Khalil holds a PhD in Public Administration from Cairo University, with a doctoral dissertation focusing on public service quality standards in primary education in Egypt using the SERVQUAL model. She also earned a master’s degree in public policy from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Tokyo, Japan, where her research addressed food subsidy targeting and social equity. Her academic background combines political science, economics, and public policy, grounding her work in rigorous institutional and political economy analysis.
Her research and professional interests lie at the intersection of gender, education policy, governance reform, decentralization, and inclusive development. Dr. Khalil has published and presented extensively on gender-sensitive budgeting, women’s rights, education reform, public administration theory, and inclusive governance, and has collaborated with international organizations such as CARE International, UN Women, USAID, GIZ, and the British Council. Her recent work includes policy-oriented research on Egyptian women’s rights, cultural and creative industries, and education quality as a foundation for inclusive governance.
Alongside her academic career, Dr. Khalil has over a decade of hands-on experience in capacity building, policy advisory, and institutional reform. She has worked with government entities including the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, the Central Agency for Organization and Administration, and the Ministry of Local Development, contributing to projects on decentralization, administrative reform, and public sector modernization. She has also delivered training on gender equality, women’s empowerment, creative thinking, leadership, and good governance for public officials and civil society actors.
Dr. Khalil plays a key role in advancing entrepreneurship education and incubation within Egyptian universities. She previously served as Program Manager and Vice Director of the FEPS Business Incubator, where she helped design and implement awareness, pre-incubation, and incubation programs, with particular attention to youth and women entrepreneurs. Her work bridges academia, policy, and practice, translating research into scalable programs with social and economic impact.
Internationally, Dr. Khalil has participated in executive and academic training programs in Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and Malaysia, focusing on good governance, digitalization, gender mainstreaming, responsive project management, and entrepreneurship education. She is an experienced educator, teaching courses in public administration, public policy analysis, local governance, administrative reform, organizational behaviour, and gender studies at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.