Mahmud’s work at ASU’s Washington Center focuses on linking science policy to better societal outcomes. His teaching, research and engagement are oriented towards making science more useful and democratic.

He co-leads ASU Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcome’s long-term efforts to build a community of practice among innovative R&D program managers in the government, non-government and private sectors.These include convening informal and formal knowledge exchanges between program managers about the challenges and opportunities for innovating in path dependent institutions.

Mahmud is the principal coordinator of Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST) – a distributive institutional network that brings together research centers, informal science education centers, citizen science programs and non-partisan policy think tanks to engage citizens on decision-making related to science and technology policy. He led large-scale public consultation projects on biodiversity, space, climate, and energy to support policy and decision-making at the national and global levels. His current public consultation projects involve Climate Change Resilience, Gene Drives, Driverless Cars, Geoengineering and Gene Editing.

Mahmud was the Deputy Director of Policy Programs at the New York Academy of Science, Director of Collaborative Research at City University of New York, Associate Director for Research Development at Northwestern University, and Managing Director of USDOT Research Center at Purdue University.

Mahmud’s expertise focuses on innovation systems, research management, knowledge co-production, policy entrepreneurship, and participatory technology assessment.