PESHAWAR: Dr Ziaul Haq, the dean of public health department at Khyber Medical University (KMU), got the “HEC Pakistan Best Young Scholar Award in Health Sciences” category.

One award was reserved each for engineering, natural, biological, agriculture, computer, social, management and health sciences categories in a nationwide competition.

In all health-related departments in the country, Dr Ziaul Haq was given the best young research scholar award and cash prize of Rs150,000 for his outstanding contribution to the field of public health rupees.

The award is granted on the basis of the number and quality of research articles, citations, research projects, supervisions, conference presentations and academic achievements during the last calendar year, according to a press release.

The main objective of this award is to acknowledge the performance of the researchers and promote competitive research culture in higher education institutions. The slogan of the 7th HEC outstanding research award was “Celebrating our Champions”.

Dr Zia said that those awards were the best means of acknowledging and honouring the hard work and preventing the brain drain at national level. He has dedicated this award to his mother Hidayat Bibi, who died during the middle of his PhD studies abroad.

Dr Zia has also received HEC’s Best University Teacher Award (2015) and Lifetime Achievement Award (2017). He is one of the pioneer faculty members of KMU.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019