Her current book project explores how global reproductive health became central to the rise, expansion, and crisis of authoritarianism in Pakistan. Moving between South Asia and the United States, it traces how faith, science, and reproduction were fused into new forms of statecraft whose legacies still shape health and well-being globally. Qayyum's research has been recognized with the 2021 Pirzada Prize in Pakistan Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and supported by fellowships and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Foundation, among others. Her research and commentary have appeared in Diplomatic History, The Lancet, The Washington Post, and Brookings.

Qayyum's scholarship is shaped by sustained work at the intersection of research, policy, and practice. She previously served as the inaugural Program Director for the Initiative on Faith, Trust, and Health at Georgetown University, where she coordinated the research program of a multidisciplinary Lancet Commission examining how faith-health partnerships can strengthen trust in health systems and science, and with which she continues to collaborate as part of the core secretariat. As a former Brookings expert, she led policy research and engagement as part of a portfolio on gender, education, and development.

Qayyum was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. She received her Ph.D. in History from Princeton University.

Qayyum is on research leave for the 2026-27 academic year on an ACLS Fellowship.