Before winning the Fulbright award for my PhD and coming to the US, I was serving the ministry of Finance in Pakistan as a corporate-sector tax administrator. It was the glaring divergence between policy decisions and academic empirical evidence on tax policy, vis-à-vis its impact on inequality, that led to me to pursue a PhD. I am resolute in my belief that by connecting the decision-making process of fiscal policy to context-specific empirical evidence in countries, we can enhance its impact on the end goal of lowering inequality. Now that I have graduated, I aim to embody this connection by utilizing my expertise to impact the policy making process through my work.