STEM Professor will be representing Diné College as invited Keynote Speaker at “13th Biennial Conference of Pakistan Society for Microbiology (PSM)”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2021
TSAILE, Ariz. — Dr. Shazia Tabassum Hakim, Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Microbiology, School of STEM, Diné College – Tuba City center is invited as Keynote Speaker to talk about “COVID or Dikos Ntsaaígíí (the ‘cough’ that kills) and Indigenous Populations Globally”, at the “13th Biennial Conference of Pakistan Society for Microbiology (PSM)”. The conference is to be held at the Government College University Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan during December 22nd–24th, 2021. The main theme of the conference is “Pandemics, Epidemics: Public Health challenges for Microbiologists”.
Professor Hakim, who holds a Ph.D. from University of Karachi, Pakistan, post-doc at South Carolina Center for Biotechnology, Claflin University, trained at UMN-Duluth, and UW-Madison, and a Specialist Microbiologist from Canadian College of Microbiologists joined the Diné College’s School of STEM in 2018. Prof. Hakim will also chair a session during the conference on “Industrial and Pharmaceutical Microbiology”. Microbiologists, Medical Microbiologists, and other healthcare experts from countries like UK, Canada, Brazil, USA, Germany, China, Australia, Jamaica, and Italy are among the speakers during the three-day conference.
“The scientific context of “COVID-19” helps us to understand that this is a constant process, all living beings adapt to their environment for survival and this virus is doing the same by changing, mutating, and adapting. That could be the animal source, “Cryptic spread” in an unmonitored region, long-term incubation inside an immunocompromised person’s body, or might be merging with the common cold virus or another viral genome. We cannot stop them from adopting, so what we need to do is to prepare ourselves. This talk will compare and discuss where our indigenous communities of the world are standing in terms of COVID cases, vaccination, and treatment facilities. Along with major issues that increase the severity of COVID in these communities, and how this pandemic can positively impact the resources and future strategies in these communities,” said Prof. Hakim.
With well over 80 research papers and 75+ abstracts, she has presented research data at several national and international forums including ASM’s International moots, IVI-Korea, Clinical Virology Symposiums, and ABSA conference. Prof. Hakim has experience & qualification that blend well in both advanced and resource limited settings, a true need of the Navajo Nation that will nurture our future Diné scientists, and healthcare professionals.
