Fahmida completed her PhD in April 2025, supervised by Professor Monder Ram (Director, Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship) and Professor Caroline Moraes (Director of Research, Department of Marketing, University of Birmingham). Her thesis examined how Positive Social Change can be understood from the perspective of a small ethnic minority business in the creative industries, addressing a significant research gap concerning the experiences of marginalised organisations.

She has since drawn on insights from this research to secure an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Creating Opportunities for Local Innovation Fellowship (COLIF), focused on hyperlocal community empowerment. The fellowship is delivered through a collaboration between the Universities of Warwick, Leicester, Coventry, and Aston, which together form the Midlands cluster.