Pakistani Achievers - At Home & Abroad

[Kabira]

Just saw this

Zarrar Sehgal to lead Clifford Chance’s Banking, Finance practice in Americas


Islamabad

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance, Sunday, announced that Zarrar Sehgal has been named Americas head of the Banking & Finance Practice.

Sehgal is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top aircraft finance lawyers. As co-head of the Firm’s US Asset Finance group, he has played a lead role in developing and growing a Tier 1 practice that Legal 500 named US Asset Finance and Leasing team of the year in 2014. Sehgal, who is ranked Band 1 by Chambers USA and a Leading Lawyer by Legal 500 United States, is also Clifford Chance’s global head of the Transport & Logistics sector.
Along with his new role as Banking & Finance practice area leader, he will continue to lead the Firm’s Diversity Committee in the Americas.

“Zarrar has distinguished himself as an elite partner and someone who cares deeply about his clients, his colleagues and his community,” said Evan Cohen, Clifford Chance’s regional managing partner for the Americas.
“He is routinely involved in many of the world’s largest aircraft financing transactions, yet still finds time to serve as President of The Citizens Foundation, USA – a non-profit organization that funds schools and educational programs for tens of thousands of underprivileged children in his native Pakistan. Our highly ranked Banking & Finance practice couldn’t be in better hands going forward.”
Sehgal, who in 2009 was recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of its Young Global Leaders, is based in New York.
http://pakobserver.net/zarrar-sehgal-lead-clifford-chances-banking-finance-practice-americas/

 

[Kabira]

British-Pakistani wins Masterchef 2017

Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed wooed judges at the prestigious cookery competition Masterchef with her visually appealing and equally delicious platter in the final round to finally win the competition.

The British-Pakistan, who is a medical doctor from Waterford, told media she has been cooking since 12 and has also won School Chef on the Year competition at 15.

Judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode were impressed with her three-course final meal, calling the 29-year-old’s dishes “extraordinarily good” and a “class act.”

Saliha competed with 64 cooks in the competition, finally winning the prize by beating competitors Giovanna Ryan and Steve Kielty in the final round.

A mother of one, she had to swap on-call shifts with colleagues to make it to all rounds of the contest.

Here are the dishes that were part of her final meal:

Venison shami kebab, with cashew and coriander green chutney, chana dal and a kachumbar salad, which she says is in memory of her grandmother's house in Pakistan.

Kashmiri-style sous-vide duck breast, with crispy duck skin, spiced with dried barberries, walnuts and coriander, a cherry chutney and a duck and cherry sauce.

Saffron rosewater and cardamom panna cotta, served with a deconstructed baklava with various condiments—a dessert she says was inspired by her childhood love of baklava.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/141652-British-Pakistani-wins-Masterchef-2017

Pak-American prosecutor takes down terrorists far and wide

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NEW YORK: Zainab Ahmad is one of America’s top counterterrorism prosecutors, specialising in extra-territorial cases, trying bad characters not present in the United States or gathering evidence related to crimes committed in far-off lands to present before juries here.

Ahmad, 37, was born in New York to immigrant parents from Pakistan, that international slouch on counterterrorism that could not have done more to sully its record on the issue.

It was her dogged pursuit over years and across time-zones that forced Alhassane Ould Mohamed, a Malian also known as Cheibani, to plead guilty in 2016 to murdering an American diplomat in Niger in 2000. She had 18 witnesses flown in to the US from Niger and Mali.

In November 2015, a New York jury agreed with Ahmad to convict a Pakistani man, Abid Naseer, who had been arrested in a connection with an al-Qaeda plot in Britain.

“We were a bit desperate before Zainab showed up here,” a British police officer told The New Yorker. “When Zainab walked in the room, we said, ‘Crikey, she looks awfully young. Is this a junior sent here to fact-find?’

“Within a few minutes, though, it was, like, ‘Whoa, she knows what she’s doing.’ There was no comparison with UK prosecutors. Zainab stayed four days with us on that first visit, and left us a big list of evidence she wanted, and exactly how she wanted it packaged up.”

The story was originally published in The News

 

[ghazi52]

Minister of Pakistani-origin takes oath of office on Holy Quran in US

The State of Virginia in the United States (US) has decided to appoint the first Muslim minister of Pakistani descent to take over the state’s education portfolio.

Atif Qarni took oath of office on the Holy Quran to become the secretary of education, according to reports.

A video on social media shows the new minister performing the constitutional oath to office on the Holy Quran in front of the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, on Monday.

Qarni is set to oversee an educational policy which supports state schools as well as higher education institutions.


According to the Richmond Times, the Muslim American is the first Muslim to receive a ministerial post.

“It’s important that we have a state education secretary who understands the curriculum and classes from kindergarten to high school and has a vision of how to develop education,” Northam State Governor said on the occasion.

Born in Karachi in 1978, Qarni immigrated to the US with his family at age 10 and grew up in Parkville, Maryland, before moving to Manassas, Virginia in 2005.

 

[ghazi52]

 

[ghazi52]

Pakistani physician gets $4m to lead research on heart transplantation

Islamabad: Currently a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Pakistani physician-scientist Dr. Faisal H Cheema and his colleague Dr. Jeffrey A. Morgan have been awarded $4 million in funding from Brockman Medical Research Foundation to lead cutting-edge research on heart transplantation.

Dr. Cheema’s mission is to make heart and lung transplant and artificial devices for end-stage heart failure and lung disease a reality in Pakistan. He also aspires to develop a national organ donation and allocation system for Pakistan. He plans to achieve these objectives in due course of time, through strategic partnerships among academic, corporate, governmental and philanthropic institutions.

Belonging to the rural areas of Wazirabad and Hafizabad, Dr. Cheema got his education from Crescent Model School and Government College, Lahore, before moving to Karachi to attend his medical school at Aga Khan University. After graduation, he moved to the United States and further trained and worked at Columbia University, Loyola University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland and University of California Berkley.

Dr. Cheema has served as Senator for the Ivy-League Columbia University and is involved with several professional, academic, community and philanthropic organisations.

His passionate work for young physicians culminated in the establishment of the Committee for Young Physicians within the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent of North America (APPNA), on which he served for more than a decade; he also chaired APPNA.

Dr. Cheema has helped hundreds of students in their search for residencies and or advancing their medical careers in the US. He loves to mentor medical students and young physicians. Ever since he left his motherland, he continues to collaborate with various institutions in Pakistan (Aga Khan University, Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS), Shifa College of Medicine and others) and guides students from medical schools all across Pakistan. Dr. Cheema has published more than 110 scientific manuscripts in high impact journals.

 

[ghazi52]

Pakistani origin Sajid Javid appointed UK's first Muslim Home Secretary

British Pakistan politician Sajid Javid has been appointed Home Secretary of the United Kingdom hours after Amber Rudd resigned amid countrywide outrage over the Windrush scandal.

Born in 1969, Sajid Javid is a British Conservative Party politician and former managing director at Deutsche Bank.

He was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, one of five sons of parents of Pakistani descent.

His father was a bus driver.

Amber Rudd was under growing pressure after a challenge to her testimony on the deportation of immigrants prompted fresh calls for her resignation.

She has faced criticism over the existence of Home Office removals targets and her knowledge of them. The pressure on Rudd to stand down increased after she said the government didn’t have targets for deporting people — only for a memo to emerge mentioning specific targets for enforced removals.

The resignation came hours after Rudd said she would stay in her job to ensure Britain's immigration policy is "humane." But opposition politicians had demanded that she should resign over the Windrush scandal.

The Guardian newspaper reported a letter from Rudd to Prime Minister Theresa May last year in which she stated an “ambitious but deliverable” aim for an increase in the enforced deportation of immigrants.

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

Dr Nasira Jabeen becomes first female PU Vice Chancellor in 136 years
Pakistan
by Haider Ali Sindhu | Published on April 28, 2018 (Edited April 30, 2018)

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LAHORE – The government of Punjab has appointed Dr Nasira Jabeen as the provisional Vice-Chancellor of the prestigious Punjab University, making her the first female head of the institute.

According to a notification issued on Friday, Dr Nasira Jabeen’s appointment was made by the search committee, on the directives of Punjab Higher Education Department (HED).

The search committee was headed by industrialist Abdul Razak Dawood and comprised Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman Dr Umar Saif, Punjab Accreditation Committee Chairman Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, and Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) Chairperson Dr Fauzia Waqar. Punjab HED Secretary Nabeel Awan is the secretary and also the member of the Search Committee.

Besides Dr Nasira Jabeen, Dr Taqi Zahid Butt, Dr Shahid Kamal, Dr Fakhr ul Haq Noori, and Dr Saleem Mazhar of the university appeared for the interview to fill the vacant spot, till a permanent head is appointed.

Dr Nasira Jabeen was serving as Dean Institute of Administrative Services and is the first woman to be appointed to the top slot in the 136 years history of Punjab University.


The Supreme Court had suspended the PU acting VC Dr Zakria Zakar on 21st April during the hearing of a case regarding the handing over of the PU’s 80-kanal land to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) for a grid-station.

When Dr Zakar was grilled by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar,he tendered his resignation before the court.

LCWU Gets New VC
The government also appointed Dr Farkhanda Manzoor as the new Vice Chancellor (VC) for Lahore College for Women University (LCWU).

Moreover a day after Zakir’s resignation, the top judge suspended LCWU Vice-Chancellor Dr Qureshi and ordered the provincial government to form a new inquiry committee to look into allegations against Dr Qureshi’s eligibility.


Quraishi pleaded the bench not to dismiss her as it would affect her reputation but the court observed that she could plead her case afresh in front of a search committee.

 

[Asian.Century]

Starting this thread to celebrate Pakistani Achievers. Starting off with Dr. Atif Mian, Professor of Economics at Princeton:

Reshaping thinking: IMF names Pakistani among most influential economists
By Kazim Alam
Published: September 13, 2014

Atif Mian. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has named a Pakistani-American as one of 25 young economists who are expected to be most influential in the decades to come.

In its September edition of Finance and Development, a quarterly publication of the IMF, the Washington-based lender has named 39-year-old Atif Mian, professor of economics at Princeton University, among 25 economists under 45 “who are shaping the way we think about the global economy”.

Mian recently co-authored a book titled House of Debt, which has received critical acclaim from academia, policymakers and the general public. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, arguably the most influential economist alive, has called Mian a leading expert on the subject of debt.

Commenting on the state of Pakistan’s economy, Mian said the foremost challenge it faces is boosting domestic productive capacity. “The low export numbers tell us that Pakistanis have trouble producing good quality products that they can then sell to the outside world (and themselves),” he told The Express Tribune.

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In House of Debt, Mian has investigated the role of private debt – rather than the debt of the government and financial institutions – in precipitating the economic crisis of 2008. Mian and his co-author University of Chicago professor Amir Sufi argue in the book that severe economic downturns have typically been preceded by a sudden and excessive increase in household debt.

Data from the US and European economies suggest that people in the lower half of the income distribution tend to have a disproportionately higher marginal propensity to spend. Mian concludes that a shock to the wealth of subprime borrowers, like crashing home prices, results in massive cuts in their household spending. This sends the economy into a tailspin and causes foreclosures, unemployment and reduced output – a perfect recipe for an economic disaster.

Mian is one of the few public intellectuals who identify the current siege of the Pakistani state by religious extremists as a joint legacy of Bhutto and Zia. “Today’s unstable macro environment is a direct result of the Bhutto-Zia legacy, and it needs to be reversed if Pakistan is serious about growth. Doing so is not easy. But there is no other choice,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2014.
Reshaping thinking: IMF names Pakistani among most influential economists – The Express Tribune

Atif Mian is same who wanted to work for Pakistans betterment and economy and Imran Khan PTI govt wanted him to bring back to Pakistan but was turned down due to him being Qadyani, Ahmedi etc.

 

[Dark-Destroyer]

Atif Mian is same who wanted to work for Pakistans betterment and economy and Imran Khan PTI govt wanted him to bring back to Pakistan but was turned down due to him being Qadyani, Ahmedi etc.

it wasnt that he was Qadyani or Ahmedi - it was the fact that he was supportive of removing Khattam-e-Nawbuwaat which was the problem.

 

[ghazi52]

US Consulate General Lahore



Yesterday at 9:00 AM ·




Meet Nergis Mavalvala – a Pakistani-American astrophysicist who won the MacArthur award in 2010 for her role in the first observation of gravitational waves. Nergis tells us her story of growing up in Karachi and how she chose her career path. She is currently the associate director of the physics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . Nergis participated in a City42 documentary highlighting Pakistani women in the United States. Throughout the month of September, we will be sharing these inspiring stories.

https://www.facebook.com/

 

[ghazi52]

Pakistani student wins Italian award for improving LTE, 5G wireless systems

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani PhD student has won distinction for improving LTE and 5 G Wireless Systems and would receive award along with a prize money of US $ 5000 in Bologna, Italy on October 2.

Qurat-ul-Ain Nadeem, studying at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), has won prestigious Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholar Award for her work in transmission technology.

Her research in Full-Dimension (FD) massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) is far superior to existing wireless communication systems and is capable of more than doubling average throughput of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems.

Marconi Society was established in 1974 by Guglielmo Marconi''s daughter in a bid to promote advancement in telecommunications and the internet.

The Young Scholars Award along with Marconi prize are presented to scholars with significant achievements.

Qurat has been working on her PhD at KAUST''s Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division under supervision of Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini.

According to him, Qurat's work establishes a proper link between the industry''s vision for FD-MIMO and the theoretical study of 3-D beam forming.

Qurat's research focus has been on 3D channel modeling and theoretical aspects of the antenna array in depth as compared to the previous researches which worked on standardization of FD-MIMO technology in the 3GPP.

She did her masters from KAUST as well after pursuing electrical engineering at Lahore University of ManagementSciences (LUMS).

FD MIMO is one of the most significant technologies for 5th Generation cellular systems.

"I think this award will encourage more women in region to enter field of science and accomplish even greater things," Qurat said.

 

[ghazi52]

 

[nahtanbob]

Some successful technology folks from the 1990s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safi_Qureshey

 

[ghazi52]

Happy Birthday Shahanshah-e-Ghazal

Mehdi Hassan with Sohail Rana in Sydney in 1981.

 

[jericho]

U of T student wins full scholarship for PhD at Cambridge University

Hafsah Siddiqui will be heading to Cambridge University in the U.K. on a full scholarship in September (photo by Romi Levine)

When choosing the next cohort of students to receive a full scholarship to Cambridge University, the Gates Cambridge Trust has very specific criteria – including an “outstanding intellectual ability,” but also leadership potential and “a commitment to improving the lives of others.”

Hafsah Siddiqui embodies all of those qualities. The geography and planning master’s student, who will be graduating from the University of Toronto in the fall, has been awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to earn a PhD at Cambridge.

“It's amazing. I still can't believe it, to be honest,” Siddiqui says.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship Program was launched in 2000 with a $210-million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This year, the program is providing 90 postgraduate scholarships to students from 37 countries with expertise in fields ranging from cybersecurity to human trafficking.

Chairing the board of trustees for Gates Cambridge is Vice-Chancellor of the University of CambridgeStephen Toope, who was, until 2017, the director of U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs (now called the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy).

“The Gates Cambridge Scholars are an extraordinary group of people,” Toope said in a news release announcing the 2019 scholars. “Not only have they demonstrated outstanding academic abilities in their field, but they have also shown a real commitment to engaging with the world – and to changing it for the better.”

At Cambridge, Siddiqui will continue the research she began at U of T on housing inequality in Pakistan, focusing specifically on informal settlement communities in Islamabad.

“Cities are really important places to research and what really interests me is that they're spaces of opportunity, experience, diversity and culture, but then they are also spaces of deprivation and inequality,” says Siddiqui. “So I want to see how we can make cities more equitable and more accessible and more inclusive.”

Islamabad’s informal settlements, known as katchi abadis, are makeshift neighbourhoods often consisting of mud huts and populated by the marginalized groups like refugees.

“My work in Islamabad will be around informal settlement dwellers who are facing the threat of state-led evictions and how well-off people living in the city can actually make connections with those people to help them remain in the city,” says Siddiqui.

She says the state is evicting people from these settlements to use the land to build profitable commercial and residential properties.

As part of her research, Siddiqui will be conducting fieldwork in Islamabad, where she’ll meet with some of the organizations that are advocating for residents of the katchi abadis.

“They are led by middle- and upper-class residents who want to do what I'm doing, to make cities places of togetherness and collaboration,” she says.

Siddiqui’s research will bring about a homecoming of sorts. She was born in Islamabad, but spent most of her life in the Middle East, until she came to U of T for her undergraduate and master’s degrees.

“I felt that it would be nice to go back home and see what difference I could make.”

She also wants to turn the spotlight on what’s called the “Global South” – a term used to describe middle- and low-income countries (whereas the “Global North” refers to the world’s wealthier countries).

“I think it's important to recognize that each region, country or even city is going to have its own arc towards development,” says Siddiqui. “So I think it's important to study the uniqueness that each place offers rather than to view it in contrast to the Global North.”

She says there’s a tendency to refer to countries in the Global South, like Pakistan, as underdeveloped and in need of help.

“But that's not true,” says Siddiqui. “There's a lot that's happening there that deserves to be researched. And it seems like the solutions aren't going to come from foreign aid, they’re going to come from within, which is why there are all these organizations within the countries that are trying to find these urban solutions.”

Her interest in exploring housing inequality was sparked at U of T.

“I lived in seven different cities across four different countries, and so inequality was at the back of my mind,” she says. “But if U of T hadn't offered this wide variety of urban geography courses – I took courses on urban social exclusion, on marginalization, globalization and urban change – without those I would've never gotten to where I am.”

She also credits U of T faculty members for their “unwavering support,” including Professors Deborah Leslie and Lorne Tepperman and Associate Professor Matthew Farish, as well as her graduate supervisor, Assistant Professor Michelle Buckley, who “was always my cheerleader the whole way through.”

Buckley, in turn, says Siddiqui was “the kind of student who was a dream to work with.

“She is impeccably organized, she's incredibly focused and she approaches her work with a degree of commitment and seriousness that is really commendable.”

While Buckley says Siddiqui is very modest, she says she’s also very driven – going to great lengths, for example, to prepare for her interview as part of the Gates Cambridge application process.

“She had multiple mock interviews and she looked up who everyone on the education committee was going to be,” says Buckley.

As Siddiqui prepares for her big move to England in September, she says she’s most looking forward to experiencing a different kind of atmosphere – and partaking in a well-known Cambridge pastime: “I'm really excited to get into rowing.”


https://www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-st...BynNm96vTfTJTqIJR-J2XDUlnYGaBF-aeYtkvHK97Ee-U