Shahla Aliguliyeva was born in 1979 in Baku, Azerbaijan. She holds a master's degree in international affairs from Baku State University. She also studied public policy at University of Maryland, College Park and conflict transformation at the European Peace University in Austria. Since 2003 she has been working as a project manager and a consultant for international organizations (OXFAM GB, Norwegian Refugee Council, British Council) and spent a lot of time in poor communities living in rural isolated areas of Azerbaijan. Her field of primary concern is democracy and rule of law in Azerbaijan and in Post-Soviet region. She is mainly interested in decentralization and civic activism. In recent years she has conducted several talks and lectures on capability approach, civic activism and social engineering.