Professor Zulfiqar Bhutta of the Aga Khan University has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s leading scientific body, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to global child health over three decades.
Founded in 1660, the Royal Society, which is dedicated to promoting excellence in science for the benefit of humanity, has elected 62 scholars from around the world as fellows and foreign members this year. The list includes six Nobel laureates, as well as internationally recognised leaders in industry and science policy.
“Election to the Royal Society is an especially rare honour outside of the UK, especially for a paediatrician and global public health scientist. So I am really humbled,” said Professor Bhutta, founding director of the AKU’s Institute for Global Health and Development.
“Since this is a fellowship awarded for lifetime achievements and aggregate contributions over the years, I owe it in no small measure to the hundreds of students and staff members who have worked with me tirelessly over the years; and to my families, my dearest wife and children and the expanded AKU family.”
Professor Bhutta is globally recognised for his research breadth and productivity. Widely published, he is the highest-ranking public health researcher in the Muslim world and was recently ranked by the Stanford University among the top 0.01 per cent of the most highly cited scientists globally. He is quick to emphasise that these contributions are the result of collaboration and teamwork with faculty and researchers in Pakistan, Canada, and across the world.
Professor Bhutta has been a faculty member at the AKU since 1986 and his scientific research has focused on raising living standards in some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, including women, newborns and children in low-income countries, marginalised rural areas and conflict-affected settings.
From the outset, he has set his research priorities around pressing national and global issues, particularly amongst underserved populations and in understudied areas of need, initially on childhood diarrhea and malnutrition, and global newborn care.
He and his colleagues have focused more recently on gathering evidence around health, including mental health, and nutrition interventions for adolescents and young children in low- and middle-income countries, especially for those living in abject poverty. They are also leading global efforts to investigate and improve reproductive, maternal and child health in the Muslim world and in conflict settings and humanitarian emergencies.
Royal Society President Venki Ramakrishnan said: “At this time of global crisis, the importance of scientific thinking, and the medicines, technologies and insights it delivers, has never been clearer. Our fellows and foreign members are central to the mission of the Royal Society, to use science for the benefit of humanity.
“While election to the fellowship is a recognition of exceptional individual contributions to the sciences, it is also a network of expertise that can be drawn on to address issues of societal, and global significance.”
In 2018 Professor Bhutta was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the highest science body in the USA. Professor Bhutta is also a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh & London), the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (London), the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.
The Royal Society is the independent scientific academy of the United Kingdom. It is a self-governing fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Past fellows and foreign members of the Royal Society have included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin and Stephen Hawking.