Elliott School of International Affairs professor Dr. Scheherazade Rehman has been a foreign-exchange and money-market trader in Bahrain and is an authority on global and emerging financial markets.

But the international business and finance professor says she just wants to educate and remedy the global crisis in the financial world.

Her family moved around the globe during her childhood, and Rehman directly witnessed the ties between economic and social development that she teaches about today.

“Living in these countries for so long, you really see firsthand the need, the poverty and the development issues. that always got me interested in finance, particularly in the developing world and on an international level,” Rehman said.

After earning her degree in finance, Rehman moved to Bahrain to work as a foreign-exchange trader. Several years later, she returned to the U.S. to get her master’s of business administration and found herself “talked into” pursuing her Ph.D. at GW instead of going to work at a bank in Paris, which was a career-defining decision.

As Rehman made the transition from student to professor at GW, she also became involved in non-governmental organization work as part of her strong belief in the responsibility to give back. As a professor, Rehman incorporates these lessons into the classes she teaches about finance and Wall Street.

“All I do is teach them how to make money out of nothing, from stocks and whatnot. What I try to incorporate to these very technical lessons, though, is that the whole point is not just about money and business,” she said. “The whole point is that if life is very good to you, financially or otherwise, if you don’t give back, it doesn’t circle around.”

Rehman is also recognized as an expert on emerging global markets and financial crisis analysis, and is often asked to appear on news programs to evaluate current situations. A few months ago, a particularly exciting appearance brought Rehman into the public eye even more.

After an appearance on “the very serious, very sober news show PBS ‘NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,'” Rehman was contacted by “The Colbert Report” to discuss the Greek financial crisis on the show. In March, she appeared on “The Colbert Report” to discuss the potential for an EU bailout for Greece and returned again in May to address German assistance to the economically collapsing nation.

“I think that ‘The Colbert Report,’ as flip as it may be on some issues, really does highlight what the heck’s going on out there in the world,” Rehman said. “Those three minutes I was on the show probably made more of an impact in putting Greece on the map and bringing to the forefront the crisis happening in Europe than I would in class or any other news show.”

Rehman has several projects in the works for the coming year. She has a new book being published on Islamic economic development, and is working on another, which will address the roles of the U.S. and EU in global financial crises.

In addition, she is planning missions to Africa, organizing doctors, nurses and educators to open a dental clinic in Kenya and provide eye surgery to people there. “Life tends not to be fair all of the time,” Rehman said, talking about her volunteer work. “But with sustainable development, you don’t want to drag anybody down just to bring somebody else up. That doesn’t make sense.”