The Spin Physics Group headed by Dr. Sabieh Anwar receives PKR 20 million from HEC.

The Spin Physics Group at the Department of Physics, SSE has managed to draw PKR 20 million as funding from the Higher Education Commission (HEC).  Dr. Sabieh Anwar, Chair, Department of Physics is the P.I. for the research project. The three-year funding will allow him to establish some key experimental facilities, notably atomic layer deposition by sputtering and a high-end pulsed laser for time-dependent optical studies. The project will contribute to the development of new avenues in magnetic landscape mapping, magnetic microscopes, and magnetic resonance at the nano-scale.

Dr. Anwar's research focuses on probing spins with light, nuclear magnetic resonance and developing health care devices for the masses. Conventional electronic devices have used the electron’s charge as the property of choice, but the electron possesses, in addition to its charge, another fundamental property called the spin. The spin can also be manipulated for the design of high-speed, low-noise and heat-dissipation-free micro and nanoelectronic devices. The exploitation of the spin property has led to the blossoming of the field of spintronics, which is aptly called "Electronics free of charge".

The hard disks currently used in computers use the spin property of the electron. Combining spin with heat seems counter-intuitive: spintronics require a pristine cold environment which is easily defeated by heating. However, recently, a resurgence of interest in the spin analogue of the Seebeck effect has been witnessed, that was originally discovered in 1827. In the spin Seebeck effect, a temperature gradient inside a ferromagnetic sample sustains spin polarisation over long distances, much longer than typical spin diffusion lengths. The spin-caloritronic effects appear even at room temperatures, a pre-requisite for spintronic devices of any practical use. Spin caloritronics successfully combines heat and spin.

Dr. Anwar’s research interests can be viewed here.
 

The Advisory Board makes valuable suggestions to contribute to the growth and progress of the SSE.

The LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) held its 11th Annual Advisory Board Meeting from January 16 to 19, 2012.  The SSE Advisory Board comprises of distinguished academic and corporate leaders who provide counsel to the Board of Trustees, the Vice Chancellor and the Dean pertaining to the academic and administrative matters of SSE.

This year the visiting AB members included Dr. Richard Larson (MIT), Dr. Robert Jaffe (MIT), Dr. Steve Berry (University of Chicago), Dr. Khalid Aziz (Stanford University), Dr. Mehmood Khan (Pepsi Co), Dr. Hubertus von Dewitz (Siemens) and Dr. Ashok Mittal (IIT Kanpur). Also in attendace at the meeting were the LUMS Management Committee, Dr. Adil Najam (Vice Chancellor, LUMS), Dr. Sohail Qureshi (Dean, SSE) and members of the SSE faculty. An overview of the school's progress and constraints, provided during the meeting, enabled the Advisory Board to make suggestions that can contribute to the growth of the SSE. The Advisory Board members also met with the SSE students, providing them an excellent opportunity to learn from people who are leaders in their chosen fields.

During this visit, a Research Symposium was also organised by the SSE on January 16, 2012, which was attended by the visiting Advisory Board members, faculty, students and visitors. The symposium included a poster display that provided an opportunity for the SSE faculty to showcase their research. The guests mingled and interacted freely with the different research groups, inquiring about their respective areas of interest.

A unique workshop introducing an intensive training programme, generates great interest in the national scientific community.

The “Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Workshop” organised by the Department of Biology, SSE was a unique event in terms of its format and scale. The 5 day workshop started on January 9 and ended on Januray 13, 2012. Bioinformatics workshops have been organised previously by various institutes in Pakistan; however, this workshop introduced an intensive training programme which included lectures, discussion sessions and hands-on sessions. As a result, the event generated a lot of interest in the national scientific community which reflected in the number of applicants.

Against the 40 training positions advertised, a total of 120 candidates applied, out of which a total of 50 candidates were invited for participation. Selection criteria was based on academic background and relevance of research work on bioinformatics.

The participants hailed from diverse backgrounds, from all major regions within Pakistan and included equal proportions of males and females. The participants included a majority of PhD students and some post-docs and faculty members. The lectures, discussions and hands-on sessions were conducted by lead instructors, having terminal qualifications in computational biology. Additionally, experts in closely related areas delivered research seminars to highlight the increasing use of bioinformatics and computational biology tools in basic and applied life-science research.

SSE-Biology aims to develop a strong computational biology group in Pakistan, which not only carries out cutting-edge research but also supplements the local scientific community's training needs in this area.

The success of the workshop, as reflected by participant feedback, is a strong indicator of the department's journey towards accomplishments of its goals.

The Department of Physics in collaboration with the Khwarizmi Science Society (KSS) organised a ‘Salam Evening’ to honour the only Nobel Laureate scientist of Pakistan, Dr. Abdus Salam on December 19, 2011.

Dr. Sabieh Anwar, Assistant Professor of Physics, has been appointed as the Chair of the Department of Physics at the LUMS School of Science & Engineering (SSE). This appointment has been made based on the strong recommendation of the Dean of SSE, Dr. Sohail Qureshi and the School's Search Committee. Dr. Anwar’s tenure as Chair will span a period of three years effective from December 1, 2011. He has already been leading the Department as acting-Chair since April 2011. 

Dr. Anwar is a Rhodes Scholar with a Doctorate from Oxford University. His dissertation titled, "Quantum Information Processing using Para-Hydrogen NMR" revolved around the preparation of pure quantum states for quantum computing. This work also constituted the first demonstration of quantum entanglement in the liquid state. His post-doctoral experience at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) involved the demonstration of hyperpolarised NMR using heterogeneous catalytic systems, microfluidic and "lab-on-a-chip" NMR, synthesis of precise magnetic fields for ex-situ NMR, algorithmic cooling, polarisation lifetime studies and hypersensitive nanoparticle MRI. 

Dr. Anwar’s current research interests include spin physics, quantum control, nanomagnetics and NMR. His research has been published in the Physical Review Letters, A and B, Chemical Physics Letters, Analytical Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry, Daltons Transactions and Modern Physics Letters B.

Dr. Sabieh is also the Joint Secretary and one of the founders of the Khwarizmi Science Society, a non-profit organisation aiming at developing a science culture in Lahore's educational institutions. He is the recipient of several awards including the aforementioned Rhodes Scholarship (Rhodes Trust), G.A. Paul Scholarship (University College, Oxford), Aizaz-e-Sabqat (Government of Pakistan), Nishan-e-Haider Scholarship (GOP), Roll-of-Honour (Government College, Lahore) and gold medals from the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education and Punjab Textbook Board.

Dr. Anwar has been associated with the SSE since its seminal years and has been instrumental in setting up the department he will now lead. He has already played a key role in setting up an undergraduate Physics Lab which is among the finest in the country. Under his stewardship Physics at SSE will surely reach new heights.

We invite all A` Level/FSc students to our Undergraduate Open House Session in Rawalpindi on Saturday, December 24, 2011.  This session is geared towards educating students about the undergraduate programmes at LUMS and to answer their queries regarding the admissions process, faculty, career prospects, financial aid, etc.

Admissions for the following undergraduate and graduate programmes to be offered in Fall 2012 are open. Click here to apply now! 

List of Programmes:

Mr. Shahid and Faisal Kazi, along with their family members and friends have generously committed to set up a scholarship fund to honor the memory of their late father, Dr. Kazi Ain-Uddin Ahmad. The scholarship will be awarded to a National Outreach Programme scholar enrolled in the School of Science & Engineering.

An MoU was signed on November 18, 2011 to announce the fund which will change the life of not just one individual but his/her family and community as well.

Dr. Sohail Qureshi, Dean SSE, has been appointed as the Ahmed Dawood Professor. The Ahmed Dawood Chair was generously established by the Dawood Family for the SSE Dean so as to maintain the high faculty and educational leadership standards at LUMS.

Dr. Qureshi had been serving as Professor of Biology at the LUMS School of Science and Engineering since January 2011 and has been appointed as Dean of SSE, on November 1, 2011. He joined LUMS-SSE after serving the Aga Khan University for seven years. Dr. Qureshi earned his doctorate in Molecular Biology in 1989 from the University of Maine-Orono (USA) and subsequently carried out his postdoctoral research work at Glasgow University, Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London) and Cambridge University. Having worked at Universities of Glasgow, Cambridge, Wisconsin-Madison and Invitrogen Corporation, his post-PhD research, teaching and corporate experience spans a period of over 20 years. He has published a number of seminal papers in top-tier scientific journals. His main areas of research are regulation of gene expression in extremophilic archaea and hepatitis-C.
 

On Friday, November 11, 2011 the Vice Chancellor and the Management Committee, LUMS hosted an Eid get-together for faculty and welcomed the new Dean of the School of Science and Engineering (SSE), Dr. Sohail Qureshi.

The event was attended by the Vice Chancellor Dr. Adil Najam, members of the Management Committee, faculty and head of departments, LUMS. In his address, Dr. Najam welcomed the guests and acknowledged the efforts of Dr. Shahab Baqai, out-going Dean of SSE, to lead the school during its infancy. The Rector, Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood stressed that establishing SSE was a daunting challenge which required lot of hard work. Syed Babar Ali also graced the occasion and announced that the new Dean of SSE will hold the Ahmed Dawood Chair.  

Dr. Basit Yameen has been awarded a Research Fellowship from Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation, Germany. Awards from the AvH Foundation are considered to be among the most prestigious in the world and promote international co-operation between German Higher Education Institutions and leading academics from around the world. The most important aspect is the support that AvH Foundation renders to its alumni for establishing research at their respective institutions.

Through this fellowship, Dr. Yameen will cultivate research cooperation with the Macromolecular Chemistry Research Group at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany to develop new materials for solar cell applications.
 

The first Pak-German Workshop on Field Robotics is being held at the LUMS School of Science & Engineering (SSE) over the course of two days - October 28-29, 2011. This event has been organized by LUMS SSE in collaboration with University of Kaiserslautern, Germany.

The theme of the workshop is to introduce new and exciting areas of research in field and off-road robotics. The workshop will provide hands-on introduction to the development of autonomous ground vehicles for outdoor and off-road applications in robotics such as agricultural automation, landmine clearance, autonomous surveillance, terrain mapping and exploration. Topics covered in the workshop will include software and hardware architectures; sensing and perception; mapping and localization; terrain classification; transversal and navigation; and other issue related to the development of autonomous field robots. Workshop will feature tutorial, mini-courses and research presentation by experts in filed robotic from the University of Kaiserslautern. The workshop will also provide and opportunity for robotics researchers in Pakistan to exchange ideas and develop new collaboration in this emerging area.

The organizers of the event are Abubakr Muhammad and Mian M. Awais from LUMS SSE and Karsten Burns as well as Syed Atif Mehdi from, TU, Kaiserslautern. The workshop has been sponsored by Deutscher Akaademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) – German Academic Exchange Service LUMS, IEE Control Systems Society (Pakistan Chapter), LUMS and University of Kaiserslautern
 

Computer Science Seniors, Asadullah Naweed, Maisem Jaffery and Salik Nadeem, ranked 30th amongst 1500+ teams from 65 countries, participating in the IEEE Xtreme endurance programming competition last weekend. IEEE Xtreme is a global challenge in which teams compete in a 24 hour time-span against each other to solve programming problems. A second team from LUMS, comprising Husnain Lakhani, Safdar Iqbal and Alamdar Hussain, also reached the top 100, ranking 94th at the closing time of 5 am on Sunday morning.

“It was a lot of fun”, said Asadullah, who had also participated in this competition last year. “We were at it for 24 hours, and I did not sleep till the end.” Teams were ranked based on how many problems they solved, and how quickly they solved them. Official statistics listed 1510 teams and 4022 students from 65 countries in all 10 IEEE regions, making this perhaps the largest programming competition of its kind in the world.

A wonderful initiative taken by institutes of India (Techfest-IIT Bombay) and Pakistan (LUMS SPADES, AIESEC Karachi and FAST Karachi), Ummeed-e-Milaap is a platform for students of both countries to come and work together as a team. It bridges differences and provides an opportunity for students to learn from each other.

The qualifier event for Techfest-IIT Bombay was held on October 8, 2011 at LUMS. The task set to all participants was to design a ‘line-following’ robot; the robot that completed the race-track set in the least possible amount of time without any glitches would clear that round. Around twenty teams from all around Punjab registered for this event including GIK, NUST Islamabad, CASE and Punjab University. Many teams withdrew at the competition venue due to technical issues; however some teams displayed extraordinary ingenuity including a robot that carried the Indian flag on its hull. The event was a tremendous success with NUST being declared the winners and CASE University the runners-up. The winners will now get a chance to cross the border and participate in Techfest-IIT Bombay.

The prime aim of this initiative is to promote peace as today’s youth is driven towards improving relations between India and Pakistan. This motivation and drive is clearly manifested in the Indo-Pak Peace Diary which is being circulated in both countries so that students can pen their thoughts about peace between the two neighbors. The Peace Diary was open to the LUMS community on the 26th and 27th of October and attracted a large number of comments from students and faculty. The Peace Diary is now continuing its journey through different institutions through Pakistan. The best ones will then be compiled into the Peace Diary and will be displayed on January 6, 2012 at Techfest-IIT Bombay and on January 20, 2012 at LUMS PsiFi, Lahore. Moreover, Ummeed-e-Milaap’s facebook page [http://www.facebook.com/ummeed.e.milaap] will also show the diary and all the comments related to it. Involving students and getting them to express their desire for peace is a great step forward for future collaborations between institutes in India and Pakistan.
 
Courtesy: Society for the Promotion and Development Of Engineering and Sciences (SPADES)

Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor of  Computer Science, has won a Rs 25 million grant from National ICT R&D Fund, for building an improved version of MapReduce – Google’s massively parallel cloud computing framework. This is the single largest research grant for the CS Department .

MapReduce is a the fundamental technique for distributing computations to clusters of computers by Google, making it possible to serve a webpage in a fraction of a second. Dr. Saif’s work, with graduate students, Zubair Nabi, Ahmad Humayun and Momina Azam, has identified critical bottlenecks in this framework, with ideas for improvements which can potentially yield high speedups. Preliminary results have been very encouraging, and this grant will help Dr. Saif pursue this direction further.

The LUMS SSE Team has returned from Lebanon as winners of the NI Mine Detection Robot Design Competition. The SSE team was represented by Dr. Mian Muhammad Awais, Dr. Abubakr Muhammad, four SSE students and staff from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. The trials were conducted inside a military base -Lebanon Mine Action Center (LebMAC) on a real minefield. The SSE robot was declared the best in the category of Vision and Minesweeping algorithms.The project was funded by an FIF grant and faculty start up fund. This effort was the result of the hard work of the SSE team which included CS/CMPE graduate students, lab engineers, software engineers, machinists and technicians.
 

Nineteen LUMS students and a LUMS employee went to the Government Girls Pilot High School in Wahdat Colony on October 7 – 8, 2011, to teach Descriptive Writing workshops to nearly four hundred ninth grade female students.  These workshops were conducted as part of a Writing Competition, which will take place this Friday. Students will be asked to write descriptive essays using the techniques they learned from the workshops during the competition.  Three LUMS professors have kindly agreed to be the judges for the Writing Competition and the top essays will be recognised in a final Award Ceremony on October 22, 2011.
 

The project was planned in collaboration with Rabtt, which provided necessary technical and on-the-ground support for the LUMS team.
 

The core LUMS team, with Rabtt, has been working hard on this project for the past two and a half months.  Additionally, the LUMS volunteer instructors have been attending rigorous teacher training sessions all week and doing individual preparation work on their own.
 

The LUMS students’ efforts paid off as the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) featured the Workshops and the Training Sessions on their official Facebook Page and Website. Perhaps most importantly, the LUMS volunteer instructors saw tangible improvement in the students’ essays and formed unforgettable friendships with the students.
 

Universities in Pakistan face almost similar constraints and challenges as they strive forward with the mission of imparting a quality education to their students. Many of the problems involving higher education in the country are rooted in a lack of resources. It is therefore imperative that, where possible, institutions share their expertise - both intellectual and practical - to learn from each other.

The Physics Lab at the LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) has taken a step towards cultivating such a culture. It has deployed select freshmen experiments, covering a wide variety of fields in physics, to the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI). It is significant to note that these are original experiments, developed using equipment and materials built at LUMS - another landmark achievement. The accompanying monographs, software and instructor resources have  also  been made available to GIKI as Muhammad Wasif and Muhammad Yusuf from the SSE Physics Lab traveled especially to the institution to set up the experiments and provide essential training to teachers.

The SSE Physics Lab had taken up a similar project earlier, whereby they replicated their experiments for SUPARCO’s Institute of Space Technology (IST).  Through this initiative of the SSE Physics Lab, LUMS has hopefully laid a strong foundation for encouraging future alliances with institutions in other spheres of knowledge as well.

The relentless onslaught of heavy monsoon rains in Sindh has stirred up horrific memories of the floods of 2010 for Pakistan. Large swathes of the province lie submerged in water, precious lives have been lost and innumerable people displaced as the country finds itself in the midst of yet another natural disaster.

In such dire circumstances LUMS, in keeping with its tradition of social responsibility and philanthropic endeavors, has formed a LUMS Flood Relief Committee (LFRC). Consisting of representatives from the students, administrative staff and faculty members, the committee will work towards immediate relief in the rehabilitation of the victims and reconstruction of the affected areas. The students will take the lead in this initiative by organizing a series of events for the campus community to raise greater awareness as well as funds over the next few days.

A similar committee was set up last year which worked tirelessly to raise considerable funds and help bring relief to a great number of the affected people in the Bhagsar, Bhakkar, Rajanpur and Charsadda areas.  This year, we hope to exceed these past achievements.
 

A 15 student delegation of the LUMS Students Mathematics Society (LSMS) participated in the first All Pakistan Mathematics Olympiad organized by Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI). The Olympiad was held from September 30 – October 2, 2011.

Participants from LUMS were divided into five teams and took part in three main events including 'Journey through Genius', 'Beef up your Brain' and 'Mensa'. The teams made LUMS proud by being declared winners in two of these events, ‘Journey through Genius’ and ‘Beef up your Mind’. The results of the third event, Mensa, are yet to be announced. The winning teams were:

Journey through Genius:

Ahmad Bilal Aslam   
Usama Mukhtar         
Hamza Anwar            

Beef up your Mind:

Usama Mehmood    
Safi Ullah Baig           

Students were sponsored by the Department of Mathematics, LUMS and GIKI.
 

Dr. Mujahid Abbas’s paper on non-commuting mapping is amongst the top 10 cited papers published in the 'Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications' in the last five years. The paper titled ‘Common fixed point results for non-commuting mappings without continuity in cone metric spaces’ discusses the existence of coincidence points and common fixed points for mappings, satisfying certain contractive conditions, without appealing to continuity, in a cone metric space. 

The paper was published in the ‘Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications’ in 2008 and was co-authored by Dr. Gerald Jungck, Professor, Bradley University, USA. The journal presents papers that treat mathematical analysis and its numerous applications. It highlights articles devoted to the mathematical treatment of questions arising in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, particularly those that stress analytical aspects and novel problems and their solutions.

Dr. Abbas, who is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics, LUMS, received his PhD degree from National College for Business Administration and Economics, Lahore. He has been a Post Doctoral Fellow at Indiana University Bloomington. His second Post Doctoral Fellowship was at the School of Mathematics, University of Birmingham, UK. Dr. Abbas has published several research papers in leading international journals.

In response to his achievement, Dr. Abbas expressed his appreciation for the efforts of the LUMS administration towards the promotion of research in the country.

Regular classes will resume on Monday, September 26. In the meantime, all administrative services and facilities will continue to operate, as per instructions of the Punjab government.

Having already lost three teaching days, the LUMS administration tried hard to convince the Punjab government to allow LUMS to resume classes because of the aggressive Dengue-prevention programme that was in place since August 18 and which has been intensified in the last few weeks. Despite repeated meetings and communication, and some earlier indication of support, LUMS has not yet received any definitive word from the Punjab government regarding the request. At this point, the administration feels that it is best to suspend all regular classes for the rest of the week, rather than continue the uncertainty.

As students return next week, LUMS remains as committed as ever to maintaining a safe and healthy environment and will continue the daily fumigation programme and all other Dengue-prevention measures to maintain a safe campus for students.

The reason the administration worked so hard to try to resume classes was to minimise the time lost and the impact this will have on the rest of the semester. The Registrar and the Deans have been requested to work with faculty to prepare a workable plan to make up for the lost time. Students should be prepared for an intense schedule and are urged to use the next few days wisely and prepare themselves for the more accelerated semester that will follow.

The LUMS orientation week for the new batch of undergraduate students commenced on September 3, 2011.The orientation session will continue till September 6, 2011. It is organised with the aim to familiarise freshmen students and their parents with the LUMS campus and policies.

The first day of O-week began with a welcome address by the Vice Chancellor, Dr. Adil Najam. This was followed by an overview of the undergraduate programme and a tour of the campus for the new student body and their parents. A ‘Department Fair’ was organised, where the attendees enthusiastically scanned the numerous stalls and exhibits put up by the various academic and administrative departments and students societies at LUMS.

Later the students and parents attended presentations about the undergraduate programmes offered at LUMS. At the Q/A session, the Deans of the three schools at LUMS answered the queries of the students and parents. This Q/A session was followed by the ‘Ice breaking Session’ conducted by senior students to help freshmen settle in.  

The first day is mainly for parents to be aquatinted with the environment their children are to spend the next four years in. A series of events are planned for the subsequent days such as welcome sessions from the various academic departments, a session on values and ethics, an art competition, a sports gala, a scavenger hunt, presentations from various student societies and a talent show to help students settle down at the new campus with ease.

Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor at the School of Science of Engineering, has been recognised by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 35 innovators (TR35) in the world. In the last decade, this is the first time a Pakistani has been selected for the prestigious TR35 award.

“The TR35 recognises the world’s top 35 young innovators that are radically transforming technology as we know it. Their work – spanning medicine, computing, communications, energy, electronics and nanotechnology -- is changing our world”, according to MIT Technology Review.

Dr. Umar Saif has been honoured for his work on technologies for the developing-world. Technologies developed by Dr. Saif’s research group and startups are used by millions of people in the developing-world. Notable among the many of these are: BitMate - that enhances the speed of Internet in the developing-world using peer-to-peer technology, and SMSall.pk - Pakistan’s largest SMS Social Network which has sent close to 4 billion SMS for users in Pakistan.

Dr. Umar Saif joins an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade. Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook; Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple; David Karp, founder of Tumbler; Harvard Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik for his work on Quantum computers; and MIT Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, one of the inventors of the emerging field of optogenetics, which makes it possible to control neurons with light.

MIT Technology Review selects the top innovators after a rigorous evaluation process. Judges, who are leading experts in their fields from universities such as MIT, Stanford and Harvard, consider hundreds of high-impact researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world, out of which top 35 are chosen for the award.

“This year’s group of TR35 recipients is driving the next wave of transformative technology and making an impact on the way we live, work and interact”, said Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of the MIT Technology Review.

Dr. Saif has won numerous awards for his innovative technology solutions for the developing-world. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He is a recipient of the MIT Technovator Award (Grassroot Technologies); Mark Weiser Award for best paper award at PERCOM, the top rated conference in the field of pervasive computing; Digital Inclusion Award from Microsoft Research and the IDG CIO Technology Pioneer Award. Before moving to Pakistan, Saif worked at MIT and received a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.

"We are immensely proud of this recognition for Dr. Saif and of how it reflects on the cutting edge work being done at our young School of Science and Engineering", said Adil Najam, Vice Chancellor of LUMS.  "Dr. Saif's work demonstrates not only the potential for innovation in technology for development but also the level of enterprise and expertise that already exists within Pakistan and the larger developing world."

For more information on TR35 please visit the MIT Technology Review website at http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?TRID=1106

The LUMS School of Science & Engineering (SSE) held a Science Fair for the children of LUMS faculty and staff on July 28, 2011. The aim of this event was to inculcate a love of science amongst the youth and to encourage them to take a more active interest in its study.
 
Science is about exploration and discovery and children are certainly experts at this! The SSE Science Fair catered to the inherent curiosity of children. It offered them an entertaining, unique and hands-on learning experience through engaging experiments, fun activities and educational videos. The various departments at SSE set up interactive sessions to familiarise children with concepts such as refraction, DNA, microscopy, use of robots and simple chemical reactions.
 
The Science Fair was attended by about fifty children.  Judging by their enthusiastic participation, SSE hopes that it can plan similar events in the future for a wider audience and ignite a passion for science amongst the future generation.

The SSE Physics Laboratory has been awarded a contract to cultivate select experiments at the undergraduate physics laboratory at GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences. As part of the (approximate) PKR 1 million agreement, the SSE Physics Laboratory will replicate four home-made experiments, and accompanying equipment and learning methodologies to the recipient institution.

Before this initiative, the SSE Physics Laboratory was engaged in a similar outreach contract with SUPARCO's Institute of Space Technology which generated resources to partially support the department’s human and material needs.
 

This programme is a testament to the hard work of the Physics team and will contribute greatly to the cause of collaborating with Pakistan's academia for the educational uplift of the country.

LUMS hosted the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Indo-Pak Cooperation Initiative on July 8, 2011. This two-day event is World Economic Forum's first Young Global Leaders (YGL) event in Pakistan.  It is the brainchild of Pakistani and Indian 'Young Global Leaders' (YGLs) who came together following last year's floods. They have now turned their efforts to mobilise the Swiss-based World Economic Forum (WEF) and its influential network of YGLs to exert leadership on issues of mutual concern.

The proceedings started with a welcome address by Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor, LUMS. An introduction to YGL was given by Mr. Kasim Kasuri, CEO, Beaconhouse School System. Mr. Kasuri later introduced Ms. Malini Mehra, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Social Markets and YGL from India. Ms. Mehra urged the audience to work for climate change issues to secure a better future for the coming generations. She also expressed the need for increased Indo-Pak cooperation on common issues and the importance of sharing information and solutions to problems affecting both the nations.

Mr. Sushant Palakhurti Rao, Head of World Economic Forum Asia also spoke on the occasion and stressed on the need for unified efforts from all stakeholders to identify issues affecting the region and consolidated efforts to bring improvement.

The keynote speaker at the event was Dr. Adil Najam, Vice-Chancellor, LUMS. Dr. Najam had the audience totally engaged during his presentation. He raised some very pertinent questions regarding sustainable development and conservation. He said that we, in this region, have to identify the problems and find their solutions. Speaking of climate change, Dr. Najam said that we were currently living through it and there was a need to adapt to these changes and take measures to ensure that living conditions do not worsen because of natural disasters. Dr. Najam expressed his view that if we adapt ourselves to deal with climatic change, natural disasters would cause less damage.

Dr. Najam also stressed on the importance of managing our water resources efficiently to prevent food stress, energy stress and disease stress. He also shared a study that brought to light the impact of human security on climate and showed how natural disasters had a greater effect on people as compared to war, especially in our region.

The presentation by the keynote speaker was followed by presentations by prominent personalities who are experts in their respective fields. These included Dr. Saleem H. Ali, Professor of Environmental Planning and Asian Studies and Director, Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security, University of Vermont; Mr. Michael Renner, Consultant, Norwegian Peace-building Resource Centre; Mr. Khalid Sherdil, Director General, Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Punjab; Professor N. Vinod Chandra Menon, Former Member, National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India and Convener, Consortium on Strategic Risk Management for India (CSRMI); Ms Isabel Hilton, International Journalist & Broadcaster/Editor, ChinaDialogue (London/ Beijing); Mr. Aslam Perwaiz, Head, Department of Disaster Risk Management Strategy, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (Bangkok); Ms. Beena Sarwar, Editor, Aman ki Asha, Jang Group Pakistan; Ms. Yana Walid Abu-Talib, Eco-peace/ Friends of the Earth Middle East; and Mr. Bilal Lakhani, CEO, Express News Group.

The event was attended by well-known personalities from the world of policy, politics, media, NGOs and academia as well as numerous practitioners and experts. The conference was organised in partnership with Centre for Social Markets, Aman Ki Asha and Third Pole, with support from Department for International Development (DFID). A follow-up is planned at the WEF's India Economic Summit in Mumbai in November 2011.

The Pioneers, a team of four members, from the Electrical Engineering department, session 2012, have made it to the final round of competition, Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 in the embedded development division. The faculty advisor for this project was Dr. Nauman Zaffar, Visiting Faculty at SSE. Under his supervision, the team proposed and then implemented the idea of a Clever-Grid using Smart Energy Meters to address burning issues of energy shortfall and revenue leakage to allow more efficient operational management by electric utility distribution sector in Pakistan. The salient features of the solution, if adopted by the industry, should have a direct positive impact on the life of every citizen of Pakistan.

Microsoft Corporation has been hosting the Imagine Cup for the last nine years with the idea that students can and will change the world. It spans one year, beginning with local, regional, and online contests in over 100 countries/regions. The finalists go on to attend, full expenses paid, the Worldwide Finals held in a different country every year. It is being held in New York this year from July 8 till July 14, 2011. In 2010, there were more than 325,000 students who participated in this event from over 100 countries and this year is the first time ever that any team has qualified from Pakistan in the embedded development category.

The project team, with support from MicroTech Industries, Lahore, has worked on design and development of a three-tier system of power distribution and management consisting of a consumer-end “smart”-meter, a local distribution “smart”-meter and a central-grid control-device. The team proposed a solution to efficiently distribute limited available electrical power, reduce electricity theft, ensure contract compliance and provide asset protection for electricity distribution companies.

Project Team:

• Taha Hassan, Class of 2012
• Muhammad Muneeb Ur Rehman, Class of 2012
• Rohail Hassan, Class of 2012
• Syed Payman Raza, Class of 2012

Project Advisor:

• Dr. Nauman Zaffar, Visiting Faculty EE

The following diagram illustrates the overall architecture of the project:

The Thesis Defense of a PhD Mathematics candidate,  Adil

Jhangeer is going to be held on Monday, June 6, 2011.

Time: 7:30-9:00 pm.  

Venue: A-16, Academic Block,  LUMS

Title of Thesis

SYMMETRY ANALYSIS AND CONSERVATION LAWS OF PHYSICAL MODELS ON CURVED SURFACES

Supervisor: Dr. Imran Naeem

The abstract and list of papers can be viewed at the link below. 

Department of Computer Science, LUMS School of Science and Engineering

Public Ph.D. Dissertation Defense and Final Examination

Computation Elimination Algorithms for Correlation Based Fast Template Matching

By Arif Mahmood

Candidate for Ph.D. degree in Computer Science

May 27, 2011

9:30am in A-1

The public is invited*

Examination Committee

Sohaib Ahmad Khan, Ph.D. (Thesis Advisor)

Shahab Munir Baqai, Ph.D. (Chair)

Ashfaq A. Khokhar, Ph.D. (External Examiner)

Arif Zaman, Ph.D.

Mian Muhammad Awais, Ph.D.

Nadeem Ahmad Khan, Ph.D.

Thesis abstract and publication list is attached.

Dr. Muhammad Tariq, Biology Chair at the LUMS School of Science & Engineering (SSE) has been awarded an HEC research grant for his proposal titled “Molecular Characterization of Drosophila Polycomb Protein Phosphorylation and Sumoyaltion Sites”. Dr. Tariq, who is the Principle Investigator for this project will receive Rs. 5.13 million in funding over a period of two years. Importantly, Dr. Tariq has established the first Epigenetics research lab in Pakistan where Drosophila (fruit fly) is being used as an experimental system to study the process of development. This is a great achievement for the Biology Department as it signifies the quality of research that it aims to pursue.

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering at SSE, has been selected as a Junior Associate by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy.

Dr. Abubakr will be affiliated with the Mathematics group at ICTP for a duration of six years. His research group at LUMS will collaborate on themes in geometry and topology with applications to  robotics, quantum information and control theory.

ICTP has been a driving force behind global efforts to advance scientific expertise in the developing world. Currently, ICTP has ten associates from Pakistan working in different areas of Mathematics, Physics and Engineering. Dr. Abubakr’s selection is a notable distinction. 

The LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) celebrated its finest at the SSE Dean’s Honor List Ceremony held at the EDH on March 27, 2011.

The occasion recognized students who had demonstrated excellence in academic performance in their year of study by achieving a CGPA of 3.6 or higher. The purpose of the ceremony was to acknowledge their year- long dedication and hard work to achieve this distinction. The ceremony was attended by students, their parents, SSE faculty and staff, the Dean and Pro-Chancellor LUMS, Syed Babar Ali who distributed the prizes on the occasion.

A delegation from Tetra Pak, headed by Mr. Max Zurbrugg, Cluster Leader Finance, Greater Middle East (GME) visited LUMS on April 7, 2011. He was accompanied by Mr. Misbah Burney, Finance Director, Tetra Pak Pakistan and some other representatives of Tetra Pak.

The visitors were given a briefing on the university and the various programmes it offers. They expressed their appreciation for the efforts LUMS is making to reach out to the underprivileged segments of the society through the National Outreach Programme. Later they were given a tour of the university.

LUMS held a donor-acknowledgment dinner on April 3, 2011 at the Karachi Country Golf Club, D.H.A. Rector LUMS, Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood, along with Mr. Shahid Hussain from the LUMS Management Committee, welcomed the guests. The event started with the Provost, Dr. Zafar Iqbal Qureshi speaking about the idea behind the inception of LUMS. Following this, Mr. Habib Fida Ali, architect of the LUMS buildings, briefly talked about LUMS as an institution.

Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood shared the history LUMS and its progress over the last 25 years with the audience. He also shed light on the National Outreach Programme (NOP), a unique initiative of LUMS for providing free education to deserving students of Pakistan. Two NOP graduates, Affan Ali, and Ahmed Mujtaba spoke about how the programme changed their lives.

The event included a screening of documentaries on the NOP and success of LUMS over the past 25 years. After dinner, the popular music band “Strings” performed and entertained the audience.

The Lahore University of Computer Sciences held its Computer Science Open Day on Monday, March 28, 2011. The session included an information session about the programme, one-to-one talk with faculty members and Dean and also a display of the major researches carried out by members of the faculty.

The event was well received by the audience and a significant amount of participants met and had personalized Q & A session with the faculty. The Head of Computer Science Department, Dr. Sohaib Khan, along with various other faculty members, shed light on the various initiatives and projects undertaken by the Computer Science Department at LUMS. The Dean of School of Science and Engineering (SSE), Dr. Shahab Baqai also addressed the session and answered the queries of the attendees.

Professor Yasser Hashmi, Assistant Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, has been appointed Associate Dean of Student Affairs. His three year term, to end June 30, 2014, is effective immediately.

The Associate Dean of Student Affairs brings together all aspects of undergraduate student experience at LUMS and is responsible for learning and development of students outside the classroom in a safe, healthy, and supportive environment.

The Associate Dean is responsible for academic advising, residential colleges, extracurricular and social activities, and student health and counseling clinics.  He/she provides leadership in the development, implementation, and coordination of policies and procedures pertaining to all student activities, student conduct, and residential colleges.

The New York Times, in conjunction with GigaOm, has published an article on the BitMate project, undertaken by faculty and students of the Department of Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering, at Lahore University of Management Sciences, on February 28, 2011.

In the article titled “BitMate Brings BitTorrent to the Developing World”, The New York Times covered the work of Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science and head of the BitMate project and his team.

The result of two years of development and funded by a joint grant from the HEC/US State Department in collaboration with UC Berkley, BitMate is a modified BitTorrent client that allows people to share and download torrents over dial-up connections, which is very important in developing countries where access to broadband internet is very limited. It is designed to enhance the performance of hosts with low-bandwidth connections, doing so without adversely affecting the performance of other peers on BitTorrent networks. Dr. Saif and his team reported a download performance increase of as much as 70 percent, in the eight months preceding the client's general public release.

Dr. Saif told NYT that BitMate “provides a level playing field for the Internet users in the developing world” and explained that if people are given “a means to efficiently access data, you'd be surprised what they can do with it!”

The BitMate project is part of Dr. Saif's work with the Dritte Initiative, a project that aims to spur development through technology.

The New York Times article can be found online here.

The Inaugural Ceremony of the Ambassadors’ Forum at LUMS was held on Monday, February 21, 2011. The Vice Chancellor LUMS, Dr. Ahmad Jan Durrani welcomed the guests and spoke about the Ambassadors’ Forum at LUMS. Ambassadors Howard B. Schaffer, Senior Counselor at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, and Teresita Schaffer, former US Diplomat, discussed and shared their views on the tumultous relationship between the US and Pakistan and an overview of the South Asian Affairs. The event was followed by a Question & Answer session and was well-received by the audience.

The purpose of the Ambassador's Forum is to project LUMS internationally and to engage the diplomatic community in an open dialogue on issues of national and international importance. It will provide not only an opportunity to invite foreign ambassadors and other international dignitaries to LUMS, but also function as medium that will allow the LUMS community to discuss international perspectives on bilateral relationships, as well as matters of geo-strategic interest.

Former Ambassadors Shaharyar Khan, 20th Foreign Secretary of Pakistan (1990-1994) and S. Azmat Hassan (Retd.) will serve as co-chairs of the Ambassador's Forum at LUMS.

 Lahore University of Management Sciences held celebrations to mark its 25th anniversary on Wednesday, January 26, 2011. The event, held on campus, was attended by guests from a variety of backgrounds - governmental, business, education and media. Foreign dignitaries, LUMS leadership, senior faculty, and staff were present for the occasion.

Syed Babar Ali, Pro Chancellor; Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood, Rector; Dr. Ahmad Jan Durrani, Vice Chancellor;  Dr. Robert Jaffe and Dr. Richard Larson, members of the SSE Advisory Board, each spoke of the continuous efforts, commitment to excellence and adherence to merit which have been the primary focus of LUMS over the last 25 years. Past accomplishments were highlighted and the hopes of achieving further success in the years to come were expressed.

Mr Babar Ali, Mr Abdul Razak Dawood and other LUMS leadership proceeded to cut a cake, prepared especially for the anniversary event. A special 25th anniversary documentary showcasing the vigourous character of LUMS was screened for the distinguished audience.
 

January 26th, 2011, saw the formal inauguration of the School of Science and Engineering (SSE) by distinguished members of the SSE Advisory Board.

The ribbon cutting was undertaken by Dr Robert Jaffe, the Jane and Otto Morningstar Professor of Physics at MIT, and former director of the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics; the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the inauguration of the SSE building was carried out by Dr Richard Larson, Mitsui Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, and Director of the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals at MIT.

Guests were afterwards given a tour of the state-of-the-art building, examining the various departments of the School of Science and Engineering.

Syed Babar Ali, Pro Chancellor; Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood, Rector; Dr. Ahmad Jan Durrani, Vice Chancellor;  Dr. Robert Jaffe and Dr. Richard Larson each spoke of the continuous efforts, commitment to excellence and of the efforts to bring the SSE to fruition, and of hopes for the future of the SSE and LUMS.

The School of Science and Engineering has appointed Dr Irshad Hussain as Head of the Chemistry Department. The appointment is for a three year term, effective January 1, 2011. Dr Hussain has been carrying out HoD duties prior to this announcement; the announcement formalises his role and term as Head of Department.

Irshad Hussain received his PhD in Chemistry (Nanotechnology) from The University of Liverpool, UK, in 2005. Prior to his PhD, he worked with the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, to find biotechnological solutions to environmental problems. He had also worked with Professor Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman and Professor Dr. M. Iqbal Chaudhary at HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry (HEJRIC) between 1994 and 1995, immediately after his MSc from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

His research interests include synthesis and applications of metal/semi-conductor nanoparticles/quantum dots in disease diagnostics and treatment, catalysis and new materials fabrication. Several of his research articles have been published in prominent journals including Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Small, ChemCommun and Langmuir. He has delivered several lectures at national and international forums to highlight the potentials of nanotechnology in various disciplines, with particular reference to his own research achievements in this emerging field.

The School of Science and Engineering has appointed Dr Muhammad Tariq as Head of the Biology Department. The appointment is for a three year term, effective January 24, 2011. Dr Tariq previously acted in the capacity of Head of Department in the the absence of Dr Shahid Khan, and was appointed to the position based upon the recommendations of department faculty.

Muhammad Tariq received his PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland. In 2003, he joined Renato Paro’s laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow at Zentrum fuer Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg (ZMBH), Germany. He was awarded EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) long term fellowship for his postdoctoral studies at ZMBH. From 2006-2009 he worked as an Oberassistant at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, an ETH Zurich department in Basel, Switzerland.

His research interests include epigenetic gene regulation during development and molecular link between epigenetics and disease development. To pursue his research interests, he will primarily focus on a paradigm based on Polycomb group (PcG) and Trithorax group (TrxG) proteins using Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) and mammalian cultured cells. The PcG/TrxG proteins act at the level of chromatin and are involved in cell fate determination and maintenance of cellular identity during development.

This is to remind that the undergraduate admissions deadline  for Fall '11 is January 13th at 05:00pm PST.

Details are available here

Two undergraduate students working with Dr. Fareed Zaffar from the batch of 2009, Dawood Tariq and batch of 2011, Mirza Basim Baig were accepted at the Stanford Research Institute as International research fellows. Both the students have been working with Dr. Zaffar on provenance aware intrusion detection schemes for the last year and have published their work in excellent peer reviewed conferences. Basim should be returning to Pakistan having spent the current semester there. Dawood would be there for another year. Just to put this in perspective, they are the first undergraduate students and by far the youngest from Pakistan to have joined SRI in a research fellowship position.

We are hoping that this should be the start of a long and fruitful research collaboration between Stanford Research Institute and LUMS.
 

Dr. Sultan Sial reappointed as the Head of Mathematics Department

Based on the recommendations of the Department's search committee, Dr. Sultan Sial has been reappointed for another three year term as the Head of Mathematics Department. Dr. Sial has been heading the Mathematics Department of SSE for the last few years during which he has been steadfast in his leadership and administrative roles.

We congratulate him and believe Dr. Sial will lead the department to greater heights.
 

Based on the recommendations of the department search committee Dr. Sohaib A Khan has been appointed for a three year term effective Jan 1, 2011, as the Head of Computer Science Department. Dr. Sohaib brings a rich experience of research, scholarship, teaching, organizational and administrative experience to the position and is expected to take the CS department to the next level in research and teaching.

We congratulate him and are confident that Dr. Sohaib will fulfill his role effectively.

Lahore University of Management Sciences’ admissions are now open for fall 2011 intake. Applications can only be submitted online.

Dates & Deadlines for the Undergraduate Admissions to LUMS

The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) invites nominations and applications for the position of Dean in the School of Science and Engineering (SSE). LUMS is Pakistan’s premier private university, renowned for the quality and impact of its graduates. The LUMS School of Science and Engineering is modeled on the world’s best research universities, with programs in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering.

The Dean will hold the Ahmad Dawood Chair in the School of Science and Engineering and will provide a leadership role in building the first world-class research institution in Pakistan. As the administrative head of the school, he or she will be responsible for the School’s academic affairs and its strategic vision; for developing partnerships with local and international industrial and academic organizations; and for assistance in raising funds for the SSE. Internationally recognized scholars with a strong research background are especially encouraged to apply. This appointment is for an initial three-year term beginning July 1, 2011, or on a mutually agreeable date. Applications and nominations, including a letter describing the candidate’s qualifications and accomplishments, should be sent to the Chair of the Dean Search Committee.

Applicants and nominators are strongly encouraged to communicate by email:
Chair,
Dean Search Committee
Email: ssedeansearch@lums.edu.pk

Applications and nominations will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, starting September 10, 2010, and continue until the position is filled.

LUMS is an equal opportunity employer. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

A poster session was held in the central courtyard on Wednesday 14th July 2010. This marked the culmination of a month long ‘Summer Math Experience 10’ organized by the LUMS Students Mathematical Society (LSMS).

The program started with a week of lectures by different SSE faculty members, who talked about the math involved in their proposed projects along with an outline of the project. The students then broke up into groups and worked on their selected projects for the next three weeks, consulting with their mentor on a regular basis. The outcome of their work was presented in the posters.

A panel of distinguished judges was invited to evaluate the posters. They included Dr Shahid Siddiqui (HOD Mathematics PU), Dr Nisar Ahmad (Dr Rafi Mohammad Chaudhri Chair of Physics at GCU) and Dr. Khalil Qureshi (Professor of Practice SSE LUMS). The judges appreciated the effort put in by the students. The results of the competition were very close, with a few points separating most of the posters. Dr. Khalil Qureshi and Dr. Nisar Ahmad gave away the prizes to the recipients at a reception which followed the poster session.

Details can be viewed at http://math.lums.edu.pk/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=2522

Zeeshan Rana, Mian Awais, and Shafay Shamail’s Paper Accepted!

Paper titled "Nomenclature Unification of Software Product Measures" written by Zeeshan Rana, Dr. Mian M. Awais, and Dr. Shafay Shamail has been accepted for publication in the journal "IET Software". This journal has an impact factor of 0.543.
 

Social Enterprise Development Centre – LUMS in active support of The David & Lucile Packard Foundation, USA had embark on the journey in 2009 to strengthen the leadership and management capacities of organisatons working in Reproductive Health, Birth Spacing and Maternal and Newborn Child Health Care sector of Pakistan. In this regard SEDC has completed 10 cases developed by LUMS faculty, specifically working in RH sector, providing consultancies to organizations for resolving management issues at their doorsteps and working on to initiate series of capacity building programmes in May, June, July and August. The launch ceremony for the capacity building programs for Reproductive Health sector will take place on May, 21, 2010 and chaired by Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Federal Minister for Population Welfare, Govt. of Pakistan.

Trainings are targeted to Top Executives and Senior Management in the Health, Population and RH service delivery organizations, which have the responsibility of providing strategic direction to their organizations. The critical aim is to build leadership and managerial capacity of the RH organizations so that they can take on more challenging tasks and create the impact needed to make the RH sector vibrant and effective.

LUMS – Packard Foundation partnership has bear fruits in terms of indigenous case studies on the Reproductive Health (RH) sector of Pakistan capturing key issues faced by the leaders in this sector, a resource pool of governmental & nongovernmental RH enterprise leaders and managers capable of providing support to other RH enterprises in addition to dynamically leading their own.

Lahore University of Management Sciences was visited by the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan on May 13 2010.  H.E Sharat Sabharwal met Pro Chancellor Syed Babar Ali, Dr Ijaz Nabi, Dr Shahb Baqai, Sheikh Ali Hussain and CS faculty members.

The High Commissioner was given a brief about LUMS history, schools at LUMS and research centres at LUMS. He was also briefed about the scholarships and financial aid available at LUMS and showed interest in the National Outreach Programme.

Syed Babar Ali requested the ambassador to launch collaborative education programmes. LUMS’ students have often visited India and Indian faculty has occasional taught at LUMS. Syed Babar Ali highlighted the fact that there was no traffic of students from the Indian side to seek education in LUMS and this should be encouraged.

Indian High Commissioner placed great importance on sending students on short term visits across borders on cultural visits. He added that not only would this be a learning experience but will also erase all prejudices against both cultures.

Talk by Dr. Fakharul Inam on the Density Functional Theory (DFT) in the SSE building, on April 29, 2010 has been cancelled.

Building up on the previous successful talks by renowned speakers live via videoconferencing simultaneously at multiple universities, STEPtalks and Department of Computer Science, School of Science & Engineering present the final talk of the Spring 2010 season. It is scheduled for Friday 23 April, 2010 at 5:00 pm sharp in 10-304, SSE Building.

The topic is Computational thinking and will be discussed by Dr. Jeannette M. Wing. According to the speaker Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. It involves solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science.

Dr. Jeannette M. Wing is the President’s Professor of Computer Science in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her S.B. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1979 and her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 1983, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2004-2007, she was Head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon. Currently on leave from CMU, she is the Assistant Director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation.

SkiTamasha is a trademark annual Dramaline event. The three day event kick starts on April 16th, 2010 and continues till April 18th, 2010. The event will feature 20-30 minutes performances by LUMS students. The performances are not restricted to any particular genre therefore they will showcase some of the most unconventional creativity in the student body here.

The theme of the event will be Glow in the Dark and it will feature over 18 skits. There will also be glow in the dark performances by the Dramaline production team itself illuminated merely by UV black lights. The event will be judged by three of the biggest names in the theatre and film industry of Pakistan.

Dramaline, in trying to promote theatre in Pakistan, has opened LUMS gates to the public. Tickets are on sale in LUMS. SkiTamasha 7 is tipped to be bigger and better than ever. Coinciding with 20 years of Dramaline and the 25 years celebration of LUMS, the oldest society in LUMS is ensuring that SkiTamasha 7 is an event worth attending.

The SSE Physics Lab, led by Dr. Sabieh Anwar, is setting up a freshman laboratory at the Institute of Space Technology (IST) in Islamabad. IST is the educational face of the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Commission (SUPARCO). The Physics Lab will setup seven new experiments, which are already a part of the SSE freshman curriculum, at the IST. This project will not only generate some valuable revenue for the Physics Lab but will also contribute to the lab’s mission of initiating a paradigm shift in the education of physics experimentation in the country.

To learn more about the goals and activities of the SSE Physics lab please visit http://physlab.lums.edu.pk.

LUMS also wins Fair-Play Award!

The Lahore University of Management Sciences Rugby team participated in the French Riviera 7’s Rugby Tournament, which took place in Cannes, from the 9th to the 12th of April 2010.

The tournament was organized by the French Rugby Federation, the Olympic Committee, and SKEMA Business School. There were 12 Universities from 10 countries playing at this tournament, namely from France, England, Spain, Romania, Kenya, Japan and Switzerland. LUMS was the only South Asian representative.

LUMS team lost its first matches against Lausanne (Switzerland), Aston (England) and started by winning against Lyon (France), but eventually lost due to tiredness. On the second day LUMS lost to Strathmore (Kenya), but the final point difference allowed them to play for the Bowl final against ESADE (Spain), which LUMS won with a significant 24-0.

LUMS was also the winner of the Fair-Play trophy for their show of gentlemanly spirit and heart on and off the field. In the Bowl Final, the whole international crowd was rallying for LUMS, flying the Pakistani flag and even invaded the pitch when LUMS won. The LUMS Rugby team was no doubt a great ambassador for Pakistan.

The LUMS Rugby team tour was kindly supported by the Prime Minister’s Office, the French Embassy and Servis Industries.

A gift was received by the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) from the Gurmani Foundation on Friday, April 09, 2010 to set the Nawab Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani Centre for Urdu, Arabic and Persian language at LUMS. The Centre will receive PKR 50 million and will be overlooked by the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law (SHSSL). The SHSSL focuses on a multidisciplinary approach with wide ranging courses that explore and explain the human aspects of the world. It has been imparting long-serving and high-quality liberal arts education since 1999.

The gift ceremony was attended by Begum Khalida Ghazanfar, Begum Abida Aminullah, Dr. Shaid Amin Khawaja, Ms. Farrukh Sultan, Ms. Rabia Sultan, Dr. Pervez Hassan, Syed Babar Ali, Dr. Ahmad Jan Durrani, Sheikh Ali Hussein, Dr. Noman ul Haq, Dr. Ali Khan and other faculty members.

The Gurmani Foundation is a philanthropic organization that caters to the promotion and welfare of the community at large and has been actively involved in funding institutions geared at imparting knowledge and other culturally inclined endeavours.

The deadline for the Graduate Programmes (MSc Economics, MS/PhD Computer Science & Computer Engineering and PhD Mathematics) is being extended till Thursday, April 15, 2010. All those applicants who have not yet submitted their online application form are requested to do so by the extended deadline.

Dr. Mathew McCartney will be conducting a seminar on Friday, 09 April 2010 at 11:00 a.m. in the Faculty Lounge on Economic Growth in Pakistan from 1950 to 2008.

Dr. Mathew McCartney is currently visiting the Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB), Lahore School of Economics (LSE). He is a lecturer in Economics and an admissions tutor in the Department of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has an MPhil from Oxford and a PhD from SOAS. He has also taught at Korea University in Seoul and JNU, New Delhi. His recent publications include India-The Political Economy of Growth Stagnation and the State, 1951-2007, London, Routledge (2009), and, the Political Economy, Growth and Liberalization, in India 1991-2008, London, Routledge (2009). His research interests are role of the state in late development, industry and industrialization, economic growth, comparative political economy of South Asia, India and Pakistan since Independence.

The Department of Law and Policy in collaboration with the Law and Politics Society presents a seminar on Medical Negligence in Pakistan on Monday, 5 April, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. at the Saeed Saigol Auditorium.

The speakers at this seminar will be Aqeel Malik, Father of Imanae Malik, Ahmad Rafay Alam, LUMS Faculty member and Dr. Salman Kazmi, General Secretary, Young Doctor’s Association.

The death of three year old Imanae at the hands of a negligent doctor has exposed the state of healthcare provision in Pakistan – even in private hospitals. More than sixty-two years after independence the country lacks a comprehensive healthcare policy that regulates the healthcare system. The purpose of this seminar is not just to witness Imanae’s father narrate the fateful incident first-hand but rather to join the struggle for an improved healthcare system in the country, which is a basic right of every citizen.

The Department of Physics at the School of Science and Engineering (SSE), is hosting a talk on, Applications of lasers in optical imaging, medical diagnostics and photodynamic therapy by Dr. Masroor Ikram on Tuesday, 6 April, 2010 at SSE Block 10, Room 402, 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Dr. Masroor Ikram is the Head of Department of Physics and Applied Mathematics at the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nilore, Islamabad. He has written numerous research papers and is also the author of the book, Lasers and Optics, published in 1999. He also received the Civil Award, Tamgha-e-Baqa in 2001. Dr. Masroor Ikram completed his M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from the Center for Nuclear Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad in 1984 and his PhD in Laser Physics from the University of Cambridge, UK in 1990.

The Department of Humanities & Social Sciences will hold a series of talks by Professor Pnina Werbner on Monday, April 5 and Tuesday, April 6, 2010, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Auditorium, A-8. The talk on Monday is titled, Mothers and Daughters in Historical Perspective: Home, Identity and Double Consciousness in British Pakistanis’ Migration and Return; Tuesday’s talk will focus on Paradoxes of Postcolonial Vernacular Cosmopolitanism in South Asia and the Diaspora: From Ritual Clowns and Sufi Processions to Bollywood.

Dr. Pnina Werbner is a Professor of Social Anthropology at Keele. She is the author of The Manchester Migration Trilogy which includes The Migration Process: Capital, Gifts and Offerings among British Pakistanis (Berg 1990 and 2002), Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims (James Currey, and School of American Research 2002) and Pilgrims of Love: the Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult (Hurst Publishers and Indiana 2003). Recent co-edited collections include Debating Cultural Hybridity and The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe, (Zed Books 1997), Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults, (Routledge 1998), Women, Citizenship and Difference, co-edited with Nira Yuval-Davis (Zed Books, 1999), and a special issue of the journal Diaspora on The Materiality of Diaspora (2000). Her fieldwork includes research in Britain, Pakistan and Botswana.

The Department of Law and Policy in collaboration with the Law and Politics Society presents a seminar on Medical Negligence in Pakistan on Monday, 5 April,2010 at 7:30 p.m. at the Saeed Saigol Auditorium.

The speakers at this seminar will be Aqeel Malik, Father of Imanae Malik, Ahmad Rafay Alam, LUMS Faculty member and Dr. Salman Kazmi, General Secretary, Young Doctor’s Association.

The death of three year old Imanae at the hands of a negligent doctor has exposed the state of healthcare provision in Pakistan – even in private hospitals. More than sixty-two years after independence the country lacks a comprehensive healthcare policy that regulates the healthcare system. The purpose of this seminar is not just to witness Imanae’s father narrate the fateful incident first-hand but rather to join the struggle for an improved healthcare system in the country, which is a basic right of every citizen.

This year, the Humanities and Social Science Department at LUMS, will be reviving the tradition of cross-border debate and intellectual exchange by bringing together some of the best thinkers and artists working in and on the sub-continent through two and half day conference titled PAKISTAN AND INDIA: culture, history and justice. The conference starts April 2nd, 2010.

The objectives of this Conference are firstly to reactivate an Indo-Pakistan non-government exchange as well as redefine the exchange as both an activist and an academic pursuit which in turn fosters intellectual ties and cooperation. The Conference also entails sharing of Pakistani research and speaking of our activist work. This is particularly important in our context as Pakistan is seen as a country that is research poor and in recent years, culturally retrogressive. Our shared past and common cultural heritage makes such an exchange relevant and enriching for both neighbours. Another objective is to provide a new generation with ways of re-examining and rethinking our most important neighbour.

The Conference will be inaugurated by Professor Aijaz Ahmad, one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of literature and culture. It will then open panel discussions, of which there will be two concurrent sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon. The Conference will broadly cover a hope to foster a cultural and intellectual exchange and will be interspersed with cultural events, like plays, a dance performance, a standup comedy show, musical extravaganza with Indian and Pakistani singers and an ongoing Indo-Pak photography exhibition.

The Conference concludes on April 4th, 2010, and will largely encourage cross-border scholarly partnership. It also aims to revise university courses, particularly those pertaining to history, and to initiate a visiting lectureship scheme along with participation in international programmes. Concrete outcomes of this Conference will be a conference book and collected volumes with other scholars working in the same field. More details are available on http://ssrc2010.lums.edu.pk/entertainment.php.

Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor Computer Science, LUMS has been named by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader for 2010. This honour is bestowed by the World Economic Forum each year to recognize the most distinguished young leaders below the age of 40 from around the world.

The Selection Committee, composed of the world’s top media leaders and chaired by Her Majesty Queen Rania of the Kingdom of Jordan, selects Young Global Leaders (YGL) after carefully screening the profiles of thousands of young leaders from every region of the world and from a myriad of disciplines and sectors. The final selection is recognition of a record of professional accomplishments, commitment to society and the potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world through their inspiring leadership.

The Young Global Leader community forms a unique global network of peers from diverse backgrounds and fields, with a highly visible opportunity to significantly impact world affairs and shape the global agenda.
Previous World Economic Forum's Global Leaders include people like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Rahul Gandhi, Anoushka Shankar etc.

LUMS School of Science and Engineering’s computer science department is one of the strongest in the country with the best curriculum and research active faculty on offer along with excellent placement after graduation. School of Science and Engineering give its graduate an edge over others with its focus on research and vision to produce scientists who will eventually help the country in its social and economics development.

The Computer Science department at LUMS offers a choice of MS and PhD degree in:

Computer Science
Computer Engineering

Apply online at www.lums.edu.pk by 9th of April, 2010

LUMS would like to invite students, parents, faculty of college/university, student counselors, programme coordinators and HR heads to meet our computer science faculty and receive detailed insight about the programmes offered and the strengths of the Department.

Venue: Bahria University, Islamabad
Date: Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm and 3:00pm – 5:00pm

Venue: Regent Plaza Hotel, Karachi
Date: Sunday, April 4th , 2010
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Rice University, USA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on March 23rd to encourage closer academic ties. Syed Babar Ali and Dr. Ahmad Jan Durrani will visit Rice University on 30 April 2010, to meet with the President and other officials.

This agreement will serve as a general framework for cooperation between the two universities and is intended to facilitate discussions of more specific programmes of collaboration. Both universities are going to identify opportunities for exchange of faculty and research staff to make faculty and students aware of the academic programmes, research institutes, educational resources of both institutions and to explore the establishment of programmes that will enable interested and qualified students and university personnel to pursue either short-term or extended programmes of study.

Professor Sidney C. Burrus of Rice University, has been appointed to the SSE advisory Board. Professor Burrus received his PhD from Stanford University in 1965 after which he joined the faculty at Rice University where he is now Research Professor in ECE, Senior Strategist for Connexions, the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dean Emeritus of the George R. Brown School of Engineering.

Since 1976, Professor Burrus has had a hobby interest in algorithms to factor high degree polynomials. In 2000, he and three other colleagues formed the "Polynomial Club" that meets to discuss polynomial factorization. They have recently factored a four million degree polynomial with random coefficients on four processors of an AMD cluster.  In addition to Digital Signal Processing (DSP) research, Dr. Burrus has been interested in the use of technology to teach and facilitate learning. He and five colleagues at other universities have published a book of exercises using Matlab, from MathWorks, to teach DSP. He has been part of the Connexions Project since its founding in 1999 and is their Senior Strategist currently.

Two of LUMS faculty members, from SHSSL, have recieved the Sitara-i-Imtiaz for outstanding service in the field of education. Professor Rasul Baksh Rais and Professor Ayesha Jalal (visiting from Tufts) received their awards at the Governor's House on March 23rd, 2010.

We would like to congratulate them and wish them the best for their future endeavors.

The Department of Physics, at the School of Science and Engineering, is hosting a talk "On The Usefulness of Extra Dimensions of Space and Time" by Prof. Dr. Pervez A. Hoodbhoy on Friday, 26 March, 2010. The talk is being held at SSE Block 10 – 301, 5:00pm to 6:00pm.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Professor of Physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University. He received the Abdus Salam Prize for mathematics in 1984 and is the author of 65 scientific research papers. He is chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes books in Urdu on women’s rights, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought.

Dr. Hoodbhoy has written and spoken extensively on topics ranging from science in Islam to education issues in Pakistan and nuclear disarmament. He produced a 13-part documentary series in Urdu for Pakistan Television on critical issues in education, and two series aimed at popularizing science. He is the author of ’Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality’, which has been published in 5 languages.

In 2003, Dr. Hoodbhoy was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for popularizing science in Pakistan with television serials and his film ’The Bell Tolls for Planet Earth’ won honorable mention at the Paris Film Festival.

Dr Usman Qazi, HEC Foreign Faculty Professor (Biology), has received a grant of 1 million PKR from HEC to develop "A super-resolution optical microscopy system for medical applications". This award follows closely on the HEC grant award of 5 million PKR to Dr Tariq Butt, Lecturer (Biology) for set-up of a single molecule evanescent wave fluorescence microscopy workstation. It is another stepping stone towards our goal of setting up a Regional Center of Excellence in Biomedical Imaging".

The Department of Physics, at the School of Science and Engineering, is hosting a talk on "Why Pakistan is not a Nation and how it can become One" by Prof. Dr. Pervez A. Hoodbhoy on Saturday, 06 March, 2010. The talk is being held at SSE Block 10 - 401 at 4:00pm – 5:00pm.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Professor of Physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University. He received the Abdus Salam Prize for mathematics in 1984 and is the author of 65 scientific research papers. He is chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes books in Urdu on women’s rights, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought.

Dr. Hoodbhoy has written and spoken extensively on topics ranging from science in Islam to education issues in Pakistan and nuclear disarmament. He produced a 13-part documentary series in Urdu for Pakistan Television on critical issues in education, and two series aimed at popularizing science. He is author of ’Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality’, now in 5 languages.

In 2003, Dr. Hoodbhoy was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for popularizing science in Pakistan with TV serials and his film ’The Bell Tolls for Planet Earth’ won honorable mention at the Paris Film Festival.

The Department of Chemistry, at the School of Science and Engineering, is hosting a lecture “From metal nanoparticles to nanostructured materials – Synthesis and applications in biotechnology and advanced materials design” by Dr. Irshad Hussain on Wednesday 24 February, 2010. The talk is being held at SSE Block 10 - 401 at 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Dr. Irshad Hussain received a Ph.D. degree from The University of Liverpool, UK, in 2005 on the synthesis of metal nanoparticles and their subsequent use as building blocks to design and fabricate new materials such as porous metals, nanocomposites, nanochains and polyelectrolyte-metal nanoparticle films etc. Before his Ph.D. he was working at the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, to work out biotechnological solutions to various environmental problems. Dr. Irshad Hussain is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the SSE, LUMS.

Test Registration Cards for LCAT & SSE Admission Test will be mailed starting February 09, 2010. If an applicant does not receive his/her Test Registration Card by February 15, 2010 despite having completed the aforementioned requirements he/she must email at helpdeskao@lums.edu.pk.

The LUMS Rugby Club participated in The Rugby Festival organized by the Islamabad Rugby 10s on 6th and 7th February in Islamabad. The LUMS Rugby Club finished 3rd and were voted for Fair-play i.e. most disciplined team of the tournament. Lahore RFC won the tournament by beating Islamabad Jinns 10-5.

In order to provide service to the community and contribute towards the development of people, the Career Services Office at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has started the Continuing Education (Life Long Learning) Program. LUMS Continuing Education Program (CEP) aims to offer opportunities for personal development to the general public. People, who could not pursue studies in their respective areas of interest will get the opportunity to do so, NOW. There is no requirement of a prior degree to enroll in the Continuing Education Program; the only requirement is the participant’s interest and true commitment to learning.

Following courses will be offered in the Spring Semester 2010, starting February 12, 2010:

• Digital Photography
• Professional Communication Skills
• Interior Decoration for Housewives
• Rooftop Kitchen Gardening
• How to invest in Stocks
• How to start and manage an NGO

Interested candidates can complete the form and send it back to the Career Services Office, along with the fee payment, latest by February 01, 2010.

Download CEP registration form here...

Further details are available at
http://cso.lums.edu.pk/view.php?lid=VFhwUk5BPT0rUw==

LUMS Mega Career Fair will be held on the 30th of January 2010 in the central courtyard, academic block from 10am-07:30pm. Representatives from both local and multinational organizations will be present to showcase information related to their respected companies and take applications for employment and internship purposes.

This is a great opportunity for students to have direct contact with potential employers and to get information and updates regarding job openings and market trends.

The Development Policy Research Center (DPRC) at LUMS hosted a presentation titled "What can Teachers do to Raise Pupil Achievement?" by Monazza Aslam this Friday, the 18th of September, in the Faculty Lounge. The presentation was attended by students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, as well as Dr. Ijaz Nabi, Dean, SHSSL.

The presentation focused on the improvement of teaching in government and private schools in the country by focusing on teacher characteristics and practices that matter most to pupil achievement. The author did this by using unique, school-based data from government and private schools from a district in Punjab and using it to match students’ test scores with teacher characteristics.

The study uncovered some intriguing results, including the fact that the standard resume characteristics of teachers do not matter significantly to pupil achievement. It also highlighted the highly inefficient nature of teacher pay schedules in government and private schools, and discovered that certain teaching ‘process’ variables matter significantly to student achievement.

The presentation was followed by a detailed discussion with the faculty present regarding the findings of the study and its implications for education policy.

The talk was part of the lecture series of the ‘Poverty and welfare’ research cluster of the DPRC.

About the Author:

Monazza Aslam is a Research Officer for the project: ‘Outcomes of Education’ part of the Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) funded by the Department for International Development and based (in Oxford) at the Centre for the Study of African Economies. A Rhodes Scholar from Pakistan (2000), she completed her undergraduate degree at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan in 1999 and her doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford in 2006. Dr. Aslam’s research focuses on the Economics of Education, applied micro-econometrics and gender issues in education in developing countries.

Every year Lahore University of Management Sciences commences an Open Day for students, parents, principals of schools/colleges, student counselors etc, to gather information regarding LUMS study programmes, campus life and fee structure.

This year Open Day 2009 was held in LUMS and Aga Khan University, Karachi on Sunday, December 6, 2009 from 11:00am to 6:00pm. A large number of prospective students, parents and teachers participated in the Open Day where LUMS faculty members informed them about the programmes offered by the three schools at the University. In addition to that information kiosks were also set up by LUMS staff to inform the visitors about admission process, campus life, scholarships and financial aid.

Recently the LUMS community lost a prominent faculty member, mentor and colleague. We would like to share some valuable information regarding Dr. Zaeem Jafri’s career and achievements.

After successfully achieving two MSc degrees in Physics and Electronics Technology, respectively in 1980, he went on to pursue a PhD. in Micro-Electronics from the University of Surrey in United Kingdom. He joined LUMS on July 12, 2000. Dr. Zaeem Jafri was working at LUMS as an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics along with performing the duties of the Director of the Office of Student Affairs.

At LUMS he taught several courses including: (a) Theory & Applications of Science (b) Calculus (c) Foundations of Electronics (d) Foundations of Physics.

Besides his affiliation with LUMS, Dr. Zaeem Jafri’s career involved teaching experience at various notable educational institutes. He was involved with the following:

• Supervising BSc (Electrical Engineering) laboratories at the University of Surrey, UK (1986 – 1989)
• Supervising MSc projects and Ph. D students during Ph. D and post-doctoral research work
• Teaching Physics I & II at Pak Institute of Management and Computer Sciences
• Teaching MSc courses in Bio-Medical Engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore
• Extensive experience in Ion Implantation, High Voltage Accelerators, Thin Film Deposition, RBS, PIXE, STM, Channeling and Electron Microscopy (SEM and TEM)

Dr. Zaeem Jafri participated in several international conferences in various countries of Europe. He was an elected member of Engineering University Academic Council and Senate as well as the Pakistan Institute of Physics. He had written various papers in the area of Physics which were published internationally. He will be missed by everyone and always be remembered for his dedication to the field of education and research.

To ensure smooth operation of the University and a prudent consultative body for the Vice Chancellor, LUMS has established a University Council which comprises 13 members from the faculty, staff and students, in addition to the Provost and the Vice Chancellor as chair: six elected by the faculty, two undergraduate students selected by the Student Council, one graduate student selected by the (Graduate) Student Council, two staff members and two individuals from the faculty or administration appointed by the Vice Chancellor. With the completion of the nomination and election process, the members of the University Council are as follows:

• Basit Bilal Koshal, SHSSL-HSS – elected
• Rasul Baksh Rais, SHSSL – HSS - elected
• Syed Zahid Ali, SHSSL – Econ - elected
• Syed Zahoor Hassan, SDSB – elected
• Farzad Rafi Khan , SDSB – elected
• Tariq Jaddoon, SSE – elected
• Shahid Khan, SSE – appointed
• Asim Butt, Budget and Finance – appointed
• Mubashra Bano – Facilities and Engineering (staff) – appointed
• Zakir Hussain – Library (staff) – appointed
• Umar Suleman - Graduate Student - 06030041
• Ahmed Ali Babar - Undergraduate Student - 11020396
• Ali Abbas - Undergraduate Student – 10020226
• Provost and Vice Chancellor (chair)

The first University Council meeting will be held soon after the Eid holidays.

Online applications for undergraduate admissions for all BS, BSc (Honours), BA Mathematics and BA-LL.B programmes for the year 2010 will be available on the LUMS website in the first week of November 2009.

Please refer back to the LUMS website for further details and updates.

With the batch of 2013 coming in for their orientation, the Residential Colleges Initiative comes to life. All freshmen are part of one of three colleges – M5, M6 and Henna Amina College (F3) – along with some senior students who have volunteered to be part of the RC. This shuffling of the batches ensures vertical integration between batches and peer mentorship. The welcome of the freshmen during the orientation or O-Week has been designed to create association with the RC, and the freshmen get a chance to bond and interact with each other. The O-Week coordinators have worked towards organizing activities such as the Art Competition, Scavenger Hunt, Sport Gala and Talent Show, so that freshmen have fun, make friends and familiarize themselves with LUMS!

After O-Week is over, the process of forming student governments and college constitutions for each college will start. This will give proper structure to the newly built colleges and empower students.

LUMS takes great pleasure in announcing that its faculty member Dr. Rasul Bakhsh Rais is the recipient of the prestigious Sitara-i- Imtiaz award for his contribution in the field of education.

Dr. Rais is a professor of political science at the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law here at LUMS and has in the past served as a professor at various reputed institutions nationally and internationally. Be it books, academic research papers in professional journals, or political commentary in various newspapers, Dr. Rais’s writing is widely acclaimed for its analytical quality and objectivity.

The award was announced on August 14th, Pakistan Independence Day and the ceremony shall take place on March 23rd 2010 on Pakistan Day. Asked how he feels on receiving this honour, Dr. Rais replied, ‘I feel really great!’

Dear Colleagues:

As you know, LUMS is transitioning to a residential college system this fall with each college having a college Master and a number of faculty associates. The primary purpose of this initiative is to build a more close-knit community within each college and encourage greater faculty student interaction, thus providing multiple layers of safety nets for academic and emotional well being of our students. This year only the freshmen colleges will switch to residential colleges. Being a college Master is the highest level of service to LUMS and to the students which will be recognized in multiple ways.

I am pleased to announce the appointment of the following Masters for the three freshmen colleges.

Mr. Yasser Hashmi
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Master of M5 College

Dr. Syed Noman-ul-Haq
Visiting Faculty, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Master of M6 College

Ms. Uzma Mazhar
Visiting Faculty, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Master of Henna-Amina College

Ahmad Durrani

Orientation Week for the Class of 2013 is being held from August 17 - 21, 2009

Welcome Sessions for Students and Parents
August 17th 9:30am onwards (Complete Programme to be dispatched in Invitation packages to students)

For Students availing hostel accommodation
Hostel check in*
August 16th 830am to 6pm

*Students must check in on August 16th during the given timings. Failure to do so may result in cancellation of hostel space.

Classes begin on
August 24, 2009

Important : O’ week is dedicated to the Class of 2013 and all Freshmen students must attend.

We announce with deep sorrow that Dr. Naim Sipra, Professor, Suleman Dawood School of Business, has passed away today. May God rest his soul in peace and give strength to his family to bear this immense loss.

Dr. Sipra taught finance and was the Director of the Case Research Centre (CRC) at LUMS. He was also the Editor of Asian Journal of Management Cases, Investment Analysis and International Finance.

He studied at University of Texas at Austin for his MBA and PhD. Dr Sipra taught at the University of Colorado and the University of Texas at Austin (USA). His research interests included issues in investment analysis and international finance. He designed and taught several executive development courses for senior management in Pakistan and has been a consultant to leading Pakistani firms as well as USAID and the Asian Development Bank. Dr Sipra’s responsibilities included looking after the various activities of CMER.

"LUMS is closely monitoring the current situation and remains aware of the difficulty you might face in accessing the campus tomorrow. Your safety is of paramount concern to us. Please do not risk your safety if you believe you cannot reach LUMS safely. This advisory will be updated as the situation warrants."

Vice Chancellor, LUMS

Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) held its 20th Annual Convocation on 24th December 2008 at its campus. The University campus community celebrated the graduation of 556 students and honoured its outstanding students with awards and medals over excellence in their academic performances. The Convocation address was presented by Mr Ahmed Rashid, a renowned journalist and distinguished author of several books.

The Convocation was held at the Syed Maratib Ali Sports Complex on the sprawling LUMS campus. At the ceremony, degrees were conferred to the graduates and the National Management Foundation medals were awarded to graduates securing top positions in various programmes.

An evening earlier, the annual Graduate Night dinner was held, where 96 graduating students who made the awards for the Dean’s honour list, NMF medals and the Company Sponsored medals were honoured with their proud parents, friends and faculty duly acknowledging their achievements with cheer and applause.

The sparkling ceremony concluded in the late evening with a formal dinner organised at the award winning lawns at the campus.