Dr Habib’s name finalised as Islamia College University VC

PESHAWAR: Professor Dr Habib Ahmad, vice-chancellor of Hazara University whose name has been finalized as the next vice-chancellor of Islamia College University has more than 30 years experience in teaching, research and development.

Dr Habib, who belongs to Matta in Swat district, did his M Phil from University of Peshawar and PhD from University of Punjab. He served at the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad where he contributed to the establishment and strengthening of a Cytogenetics lab which later on got recognized as Cytogenetics Programme.  At the Higher Education Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he contributed towards strengthening of the curricula and research in Plant Sciences, particularly Genetics.

While working at the WWF-Pakistan, he was able to contribute towards the introduction of a new academic discipline ‘Applied Ethnobotany’ in Pakistan.At the Hazara University which he joined in 2005, he laid down the foundation of departments of Botany, Zoology, Genetics and a graduate Centre for Human Genetics.

As the vice-chancellor, he managed to obtain more than Rs10,663 million for Hazara University, Mansehra in recent months. He established research collaboration of Hazara University with a number of national and international universities and organizations.

Dr Habib has published 217 research articles and supervised 20 PhDs, 117 M Phils and a number of M Sc students. Besides his cumulative impact factor of 132.6 in ISI indexed papers, he led research that identified 13 new genes as well as sequenced the whole genome of Dengue virus and characterized new mutations/genes for its adaptation leading towards an international research project for production of vaccines against Dengue viruses.

His newly released commercial variety of oilseed, Hasnain-2013, is under commercial cultivation by farmers. He is credited with introducing several promising lines of different crop species in the country. He has completed 13 research projects and another seven research projects are ongoing under his complete or partial supervision.Dr Habib has won numerous awards and is the first Muslim and Pakistani scientist to remain on the Board of Directors, Society for Conservation Biology (USA).