Dr Zainab Samad
Chair, Department of Medicine & Founding Director, CITRIC-Health Data Science Centre
Dr Zainab Samad, a proud alumnus of the Medical College’s MBBS programme, is the Principal Investigator of the grant and the Founding Director of the newly established Health Data Science Centre. She has served as full-time faculty at Duke University where she worked with renowned clinical researchers and a large multi-disciplinary team to leverage local data to inform long-term outcomes of valvular heart disease. Dr Samad returned to Pakistan and has since been passionately pursuing a university-wide initiative to combine and use the University’s health data to estimate disease patterns and outcomes in the country.
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Dr Zahra Hoodhboy
Associate Professor, Paediatrics & Child Health
Dr Zahra Hoodbhoy is an alumnus of the AKU Medical College's MBBS programme and has done her Ph.D. in Public Health. Her research interest lies in technology and artificial intelligence in improving maternal and child health indicators in low-resource settings. As part of the data science initiative, Dr Hoodbhoy and her team are leading the capacity-building arm that aims to develop a health data science program in Pakistan. She will also work with the larger team to collate data from internal and external sources for enabling data-driven solutions for health issues unique to Pakistan and other LMIC contexts.
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Ms Mushyada Ali
Manager, Department of Medicine
Ms Mushyada Ali has over 14 years of experience in Information Technology with a background in business intelligence, business process reengineering, and software development. She completed her Bachelors in Engineering in Computer and Information Systems and is currently pursuing a Masters in Data Science from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA).As part of the project team, Ms Mushyada is supporting the collation of the internal data landscape. She is also looking at the data sets available in the university to understand and broaden the use of available data in the organization.
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Dr M Imran Nisar
Assistant Professor, Paediatrics & Child Health
Dr Nisar holds an MBBS degree, an MSc in Epidemiology & Biostatistics & a Ph.D. in Population & Public Health. His area of work includes infectious diseases, maternal, newborn & child health, vaccine-preventable diseases, early childhood growth, development & nutrition. He has various publications on Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimation with the Institute for Health Metric and Evaluation (IHME), USA, He has co-led multiple surveys for COVID-19 in the district east of Karachi during the pandemic year & is a principal investigator for a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded study exploring transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in Karachi.
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Dr Bilal Ahmed Usmani
Senior Assistant Professor & Section Head
Epidemiology & Biostatistics, CHS
Dr Bilal Ahmed Usmani is a mathematical modeler with an emphasis on infectious disease epidemiology. Inspired by patterns and periodic phenomena in nature, he has gained rich experience in applications of modeling techniques in analyzing big data, especially data pertaining to rare events. Dr Bilal has been a part of multiple curriculum design and research committees in government institutions and will play a substantial role in the research and capacity building of the data science professionals from the initiative.
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Dr Sana Sadiq Sheikh
Assistant Professor, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr Sana Sadiq Sheikh holds an MBBS degree, an MSc degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a Ph. D. in Population and Public Health. Dr Sheikh has served as an Assistant Director of Research at Tabba Heart Institute and she has held multiple positions including senior positions at Aga Khan University. Her research interests encompass nutrition, food insecurity, cardiovascular diseases, adolescents, and young adults. Her extensive research contributions have resulted in numerous noteworthy publications both nationally and internationally.
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Dr Zarmeen Nasim
Senior Instructor, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr. Zarmeen completed her doctoral studies in Computer Science from IBA in 2022. She has been a part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. During her Ph.D., she worked on several research projects that primarily focused on using natural language processing techniques for solving real-world problems. Her research interests include text analytics, data mining, social network analysis, and machine learning. In her current role at AKU, she aims to address health-related problems using data science and machine learning methods.
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Dr Hasan Nawaz Tahir
Senior Instructor, Community Health Sciences
Dr Hasan Nawaz Tahir is a public health professional with expertise in digital health. He is a graduate of Baqai Medical University MBBS program. Dr Hasan has been involved in grant writing for digital health and data science interventions in the context of LMIC's, the development of digital health solutions ranging from geo-spatial mapping, electronic disease surveillance system, hospital digitization, monitoring, and evaluation of digital health interventions. He is also involved in the development of the curriculum for the MS in Health Data Science. He also conducted a feasibility survey to assess the need for the MS programme.
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Dr Nida Saddaf Khan
Senior Instructor, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr Nida Saddaf Khan is a data scientist having a Proven™ Professional Data Scientist Associate (EMCDSA) EMC certification. She has completed her doctoral degree from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi. Her research involves various AI fields such as Deep Learning, Big Data, ML, Time Series Analysis, Stochastic Modeling, Causality Modeling, Social Network Analysis, Text Analytics, Sensor Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things. she has over 15 years of teaching and research experience at various prestigious universities and has also served in the software industry in various capacities.
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Ms Namra Aziz
Instructor, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Ms Namra Aziz completed her undergraduate degree in Economics and Mathematics from IBA in 2018. She has joined CITRIC-Health Data Science Centre as a research instructor and is currently enrolled in Master's of Data Science Program at IBA (2nd semester). Namra is working at Aga Khan University Hospital as part of AKUPI NCD ECRA Fogarty Fellowship - a collaboration between Aga Khan University, IBA, and Duke University. She is also a volunteer at an NGO named Heal Aid Foundation and aims to work as a Data Scientist as part of charity alongside other NGO projects for the people of Pakistan.
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Ms Zainab Siddiq
Senior Research Instructor, Department of Medicine
Ms Zainab Siddiq holds a Master's from Columbia University, New York, in Biostatistics (Statistical Genetics track) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She has worked in the Department of Women and Child Health at Columbia University NY-Presbyterian Hospital. Zainab’s expertise lies in analyzing longitudinal and cross-sectional patient and hospital data. Her work has resulted in more than 30 publications so far. An area of future research interest for Zainab is exploring the association between maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy and the effect on childhood obesity.
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Mr Muhammed Imran
Research Instructor, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Mr Imran Magsi is a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from the Institute of Business Administration Karachi and is also pursuing a master's degree in Data Science. He is a researcher at Aga Khan University, Department of Medicine as part of the AKUPI NCD ECRA Fogarty Fellowship, a collaboration between Aga Khan University, IBA Karachi, and Duke University. Mr Imran has experience in econometric modeling using EViews and Stata, as well as machine learning modeling using Python and is working on a range of projects related to health economics and cardiovascular diseases. |
Mr Khalid AzizAnalyst, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Mr. Khalid Aziz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. He began his professional career as a Python developer & data analyst at the Aga Khan Development Network's Digital & Health Resource Centre (AKDN, dHRC) where he was involved in machine learning-based image processing project via applying state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms & statistical techniques. He has consistently demonstrated expertise in analysing & interpreting hospital data, contributing to the field of data science.
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Dr Hajra Khwaja
Research Specialist, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr Hajra Khwaja has been associated with the institution for the last 4 years. She completed her bachelor's in BDS (Dentistry) from Fatima Jinnah Dental College and later did her Masters in MSc HPM from Aga Khan University. Dr Hajra has a vast research background and has been associated with WHO-funded research projects within the organization. Previously she was working in clinics and academia as an instructor.
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Dr Afshan AnwarResearch Specialist, CITRIC-Health Data Science Centre
Dr Afshan Anwar has been associated with the institution for the last 4 years. She completed her bachelor's in BDS (Dentistry) from Altamash Institute of Dental Medicine and later did her Masters in MSc HPM. She is currently serving as a research associate in the Department of Medicine for the Health Data Science initiative.
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Ms Dilshad Baig
Grant Coordinator, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Ms Dilshad Baig has a Master's degree from the University of Karachi. She joined Research Office a decade ago and brings along with her a vast experience in research grant administration and Financial management. Dilshad played a pivotal role in the implementation of the PeopleSoft Grants Module in Pakistan and Kenya, EA, the first ever software to be implemented in this region. She has a keen eye for detail and a passion and aptitude for developing administrative research processes at AKU.
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Dr Hassan Raja
Research Associate, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr Hassan Raja is an alumnus of the Aga Khan University MBBS Class of 2022. He is currently supporting the Health Data Science Center as a Research Associate. With a primary interest in Internal Medicine, Nephrology, and Data Science, Dr Hassan is keen to working towards establishing a stronger health data science ecosystem, that has the potential to improve health outcomes within Pakistan, through data-driven and evidenced-based solutions.
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Dr Asim Shaikh
Research Associate, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr Asim Shaikh has completed his MBBS from the Dow University of Health Sciences in 2021 and has a background in Cardiovascular research. He is currently supporting current projects as a Research Associate. Dr. Asim believes that Pakistan's first Health Data Science Centre will lead in cementing strong data management policies in the country and exponentially improve the integrity of research to be conducted in the future.
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Dr Maaha Ayub
Research Associate, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Dr. Maaha Ayub is a fresh graduate of AKU MBBS Class of 2022, and aspires to pursue her career in gastroenterology . She has keen interest in data-driven healthcare and the transformative potential of the Health Data Science Centre in Pakistan. Through her role as a Research Associate, she seeks to contribute to the center's mission of fostering health data research and analysis by actively participating in the advancement of data-driven solutions, ultimately leading to improved healthcare practices and policies in the country.
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Syeda Nadia Bokhari
Research Associate, Citric Health Data Science Centre Syeda Nadia Bokhari holds an MBA in Marketing and is currently pursuing a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Management. She has experience working at leading national and multinational organizations in Pakistan in the field of academic research, market research, business development and strategic marketing planning. Her role at AKU's CITRIC - Health Data Science Centre involves cross-functional collaborations between internal and external stakeholders across various projects. She also manages communications and public relations for the Centre.
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Shaikh Shumail Shahbaz
Project Manager, Citric Health Data Science Centre
Shaikh Shumail Shahbaz, is an MBA in Project Management and a bi-majors in Supply Chain Management. He brings about 14 years of experience, working in IT consultancy and development sector projects. Shumail's expertise lies in project management, implementation, planning, development, etc. His experience in public health enables an in-depth understanding of the challenges faced by this sector - driving his passion to work on projects that aim to improve access to healthcare, enhance public health infrastructure, and promote health education.
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