Aga Khan University, chartered in 1983 as Pakistan's first private international university, is committed to the provision of education, research and health care of international standard relevant to Pakistan and the region. The affiliated Aga Khan University Hospital has well-equipped investigative services and provides state-of-the-art clinical facilities.

The Department is a newly formed vibrant identity for ophthalmology at AKU poised to deliver subspecialized and multidisciplinary services integrated with an enabling environment that supports outstanding teaching/learning, research, partnerships, and leadership development.   

Current Faculty work closely with a team of over 40 specialized medical staff, nurses, optometrists, technicians, technologists and others to offer comprehensive eye care for adults and children. These include but are not limited to surgery for cataract, corneal transplant, retinal disorders, glaucoma, orbital and facial reconstruction, refractive, squint, and ophthalmic tumors. Most of these services are delivered through the outpatient consulting clinics and/or day care surgery.

We offer a collaborative environment for translational vision research that builds on inter-departmental strengths in molecular genetics of inherited retinal diseases, ocular oncology, retinopathy of prematurity, and early detection of childhood vision problems.  A major priority is to strengthen this environment and promote high quality research including clinical trials.

Aga Khan University invites applications for the position of Research Associate in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

You will be responsible to assist Faculty under supervision of Sr. Research Instructor in the research endeavours, including fostering an environment that promotes excellence in research trials, assist in writing research protocols/grants/research ethics applications, refining research tools, collecting and analysing data, coordinating communication between the research team and other stakeholders for data collection, preparing manuscripts for publications, and working closely with relevant University and Hospital research groups. Additionally, you will be responsible to:

• assist Sr. Research Instructor in the department with planning, managing, and conducting the research projects;
• support faculty, fellows and residents to carry out department research activities in coordination with the supervisor;
• recruit study subjects; ensure high quality data collection from various medical resources i.e., record files and patients in ward and clinics;
• coordinate with AKU’s clinical trial centre/ shared research services and other collaborating centres as required;
• patient outcomes assessment at follow-ups and calling patients (if required); 
• summarize completed protocols and studies; writing scientific articles and manuscripts for publication and presentation;
• monitor and collaborate research activities and, ensure smooth and efficient day-to-day operations of data collection activities;
• assist with in cleaning and preparing data for analysis; 
• assist in quantitative and quantitative data analysis;
• organize and maintain publication records for the department;
• coordinate with other departments of AKU for grant approvals at the time of submission and upload and follow extramural grants submission through the AKU PeopleSoft system;
• submit ERC and, request ERC extension;
• assist in communicating research stories for website, donors as requested by the Department and funding agencies.