LAHORE, May 5: A 25-year-old gold medalist from Punjab University Ms Shaheen Nazir became country’s youngest PhD holder in mathematics as GCU’s Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences declared the results of its third batch of five successful candidates here on Monday.

The other four PhD holders, all male candidates, are: Zahid Raza of Hafizabad, Imran Ahmad of Lahore, Hani Shaker of Faisalabad and Khurram Shabbir of Lahore. The two earlier batches included three and five PhD scholars.

The theses of the third batch candidates have been evaluated by foreign mathematical scientists specially engaged by the school. They included Prof Dr Alexander Suciu from the US, Prof Dr Andras Nemethi from Hungary, Prof Dr Stefan Papadima from Romania and Prof Dr Laurentiu Paunescue from Australia.

ASSMS director-general Dr A.D Raza Chaudhry while declaring the results said in a statement that each of the PhD candidates had several papers accepted for publication in international ISI journals and the quality of their research could be compared with top universities of the world.

“They have completed a very vast and advanced level of deep course work of over 60 credits”, he said. He said that Ms Shaheen Nazir was the strongest and most versatile young female mathematician of Pakistan.