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Pakistan
Dr Zulfiqar A. Bhutta is the Distinguished University Professor and Founding Director of the Institute for Global Health and Development and the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at the Aga Khan University. He also holds the Robert Harding Inaugural Chair in Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, and is Co-Director of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health. He holds adjunct professorships at the Schools of Public Health at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), Tufts University (Boston), Boston University School of Public Health, University of Alberta as well as the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is a designated Distinguished National Professor of the Government of Pakistan and was the Founding Chair of the National Research Ethics Committee of the Government of Pakistan from 2003-2014. Dr. Bhutta was a member of the Independent Expert Review Group (iERG) appointed by the UN Secretary General for monitoring global progress in maternal and child health MDGs (2011-2015).
Professor Bhutta was educated at the University of Peshawar (MBBS) and obtained his PhD from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh & London), the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (London), American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He heads a large research team in Pakistan working on issues of maternal, newborn and child survival and nutrition globally and regionally. As the past-President of the Commonwealth Association of Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (CAPGAN) and the Federation of Asia-Oceania Perinatal Societies (FAOPS) and the International Pediatrics Association, he has been a leading voice for health professionals supporting integrated maternal, newborn and child health globally.
Dr. Bhutta is the first dual recipient of the Aga Khan University Distinguished Faculty Award for Research (2005) and AKU Award of Distinction (2012). Dr Bhutta was awarded the inaugural Programme for Global Pediatric Research Award for Outstanding Contributions to Global Child Health (2009), the American Academy of Pediatrics' Sam Fomon Award for lifetime contributions to Nutrition Research (2014), the WHO Ihsan Dogramaci Family Health award (2014), the inaugural TUBA Academy of Sciences Award for global contributions to Health and Life Sciences (2015), University of Toledo Medical Missions Hall of Fame Award (2016), the McKinsey Geneva Forum for Health award for contributions to maternal and child health globally (2016) and the World Academy of Sciences (Trieste) TWAS Prize in Medical Sciences in 2017. He was recognized by the Senate of Canada with its Canada 150 Medal for contributions to Global Child Health and given the BMJ Award for Outstanding contributions to South Asia. Dr Bhutta was admitted to the National Academy of Medicine in October 2018, the highest academic and scientific platform in North America and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the oldest science body in the UK in 2020. View Profile
Dr Sajid Bashir Soofi, MBBS, FCPS is the Professor at the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health and Associate Director at Centre of Excellence in Women & Child Health, Aga Khan University. He is a clinician researcher and a public health expert with vast experience of community-based research & surveys. He has been awarded the prestigious International Health Research Award by the American Academic of Pediatrics in 2010. He is also the recipient of the prestigious scientific award of CDC - the Charles C. Shepard Science Award by Centre for Disease Control CDC. His research areas include maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health with an emphasis on nutrition and infectious diseases. The key areas that Dr. Soofi worked over the last decade have been predominantly in epidemiological and interventional trials focusing on neonatal child health and nutrition, the majority being cluster randomized trial and surveys. The evidence congregated through these trials has played an instrumental role in guiding policy and programs, including the evaluation of health interventions at local and regional level.
Dr. Soofi academic bibliography comprises over 120 publications, book chapters, reviews and commentaries. He has published in several high-impact international journals, including Lancet, BMC Research, Journal of Infection and Public Health and Vaccine. He was co-investigators of National Nutrition Surveys, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Pakistan (2011 & 2018). He supported National and Provincial EOCs of Pakistan and Afghanistan in generating evidence on polio sero protection level of children to review and improve their operational strategies for eradication of polio from Pakistan. Presently, Dr Soofi is responsible for the implementation of Third Party Verification Immunization Coverage Survey, Strengthening Essential immunization, Willows Reproductive Health Projects, Stunting Prevention Projects, Polio and Sero Prevalence Surveys and Strengthening MNCH services with financial support from World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, Harvard University, World Food Program, Swiss Red Cross and UNICEF in different districts of Pakistan. View Profile
Dr Muhammad Atif Habib, PhD is a Public health expert and holds a faculty position in the department of Paediatrics at the Women and Child Health Division at Aga Khan University. He has vast public health experience and skills and has been involved in multiple national and international maternal, neonatal and child health projects. His research interests include areas in child health with emphasis on nutrition. He has significant experience of developing, implementing and evaluating epidemiological studies and interventions trials on maternal and child health and has also being an integral part of large scale immunization surveys such as National Nutrition Surveys conducted in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Eritrea. His academic bibliography comprised of several high impact peer reviewed publications and technical report and a book chapter. Dr Habib is also a certified trainer for Emergency Nutrition Assessment (ENA), Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) & others. View profile
Zahid Memon, Zahid Memon is working as Director Projects and provides research leadership and strategic oversight to the Centre’s efforts in designing and undertaking health systems and community engagement implementation research portfolio. He is currently overseeing Centre’s MNCH flagship implementation research at scale project Umeed-Nau (New Hope).
Zahid had led the design and implementation of health systems strengthening and community engagement research projects to create an evidence base for policy development at the national and international levels to improve maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. In additions he has developed effective monitoring, learning and evaluation systems to track progress, and regularly evaluate program components, to measure success that is effectively communicated to the university leadership, funders, and collaborators.
Zahid has previously held key leadership positions in the maternal, newborn and child health in Pakistan, including as Head of Research and M&E at Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan and as the Research Specialist with the DFID’s flagship maternal and newborn health program, the British Council-implemented Research and Advocacy Fund (RAF).
Zahid Memon holds the European Master of Public Health (Europubhealth), consisting of dual MPHs from the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). He also holds a postgraduate degree in Anthropology from the Quaid-e-Azam University (Pakistan).
In addition to this, Zahid has made significant contributions global public health. He was instrumental not only in the developmental phase but in the analytical phases of different health and nutrition-related research projects in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Eretria, and Afghanistan. These projects helped local ministries of health and UNICEF initiatives develop health and nutrition intervention packages that target the countries’ many problems and to educate the people of the country to alter their practices to raise healthier children.
Zahid Memon has published several articles in peer-reviewed international and national journals, co-authored a book and wrote book chapters on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition.
Mr Imtiaz Hussain, joined Aga Khan University as Research Officer in 2002 and at present presently holds the position of Director Research Operations at Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health Aga Khan University. He has more than 20 years’ experience of implementing different community based research projects and surveys at National and International scale under the umbrella of division of Women and Child Health Aga Khan University. During his 20 years of association in the field of public health research, his focus is to improve Maternal and Child Health, Nutrition and Essential Immunization in Pakistan and globally, to foster a research culture with highest scientific and ethical standards and to promote an environment conducive for its researchers to engage in scientific inquiry. He worked closely with the national stakeholders, private partners, ministries and the sponsor agencies to develop research ideas and innovations and implementing the evidence in programmatic settings to influence policy makers in the country. His research work enabled him to undertake several high impact research studies and key surveys such as the National Nutrition Survey in Afghanistan, Maldives, Eritrea and Pakistan and Polio Seroprevalence surveys in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
During his association with The Aga Khan University, Mr. Hussain contributed as a lead in more than 40 national, international and provincial scale research projects, submitted more than 50 technical reports/manuscripts, coordinated with more than 20 institutions/organizations [International Universities, UN agencies, INGOs such as The Harvard school of Public Health, World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Centre of Disease Control (CDC), Swiss Red Cross, World Health Organization]. He experiences the translation of his theoretical knowledge and experience to a broader scope and was awarded with Young Professional researcher award in Micronutrient forum held in Beijing in 2008. He aims to rigorously contribute in the research being done in Pakistan to achieve the MDGs and SDGs. View profile
