National Speakers
Prof. Dr. Fauzia Shamim (Ziauddin University, Pakistan)
Prof. Dr. Fauzia Shamim is the Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Ziauddin University in Karachi, Pakistan. She is currently leading the development of departments and programs for the faculty with a focus on Languages, Literature and Culture. Previously, she has worked at several public and private sector universities in Pakistan and abroad, including the Institute of Business Management, University of Karachi, and the Aga Khan Institute of Education Development in Karachi, Pakistan. She has also served as Coordinator at the English Language Center, Taibah University, KSA. Her research interests include: English as medium of Instruction, developing context-appropriate pedagogy for teaching English in difficult circumstances, and NNESTs education and development.
Prof. Dr. Mamuna Ghani (IUB, Pakistan)
Prof. Dr. Mamuna Ghani currently serves as Dean of Faculty of Arts, and Chairperson of department of English language and Literature, Islamia University of Bahawalpur. She holds PhD in Applied Linguistics from Essex University Colchester, UK. Besides this, she has been appointed many times as acting vice chancellor at Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Her research interests are in the following areas: Research Methodology, ELT, and Literature. She has worked with leading linguists in Canada, France, UK, USA, Iran and Indonesia. She has published 75 Publications in national and international journals. Moreover, she has also written different modules and worked as a part of the Module writing Team, under the funded project by HEC in collaboration with British Council and Open University UK. She has also presented talks in international conferences in Pakistan and foreign countries. She is also Chief editor of the “The journal of Linguistics and Literature”. She has also received national and international awards from various universities and organizations.
Prof. Dr. Ayesha Suhail (AJK University, Pakistan)
Prof. Dr. Ayesha Suhail currently works as the Dean of faculty of Arts, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. Her research interests are Conversation Analysis and its interface with Phonetics, Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis and Language Documentation. She has organized conferences at University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and is author of many research papers and chapters in books.
Prof. Dr. Nasreen Hussain (IoBM, Pakistan)
Prof. Dr. Nasreen Hussain holds a PhD in Education. She is Head of Education department, and has 34 years of diverse teaching, research, and national as well as international consultancy experience. She also holds the position of the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Education and Educational Development (JoEED), which is published biannually by the Department of Education. In addition, Dr. Hussain has edited books as well as written academic articles, book chapters and has received British Council, Hornby Trust, USIS, USAID, HEC and AKU awards to pursue her academic and research projects. Her interest is in educational research methods with a special focus on qualitative research, continuing professional development, curriculum design, and material development. She has worked systematically in the area of education and training at national and international level by contributing her expertise to various organizations. This includes appointment as a consultant by Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Time Knowledge Nazrana (TKN) for a project in Syria, Afghanistan, and Egypt, online material development and counselor to prospective AKU nursing students in Syria, Afghanistan and Egypt; National Evaluator by the Royal Society of Arts, Cambridge University, UK. She has planned, organized and conducted in-service training programs for Pakistan Army & Navy, Curriculum Wing-Sindh, Siemens, Proctor & Gamble, Fauji Foundation, KESC, State Bank of Pakistan, Engro and various national and international agencies.
Prof. Dr. Sajida Zaki (NED, Pakistan)
Prof. Dr. Sajida Zaki serves as chairperson at English Department of Humanities, NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi. She has launched Applied Linguistics postgraduate programme at NEDUET and founded Journal of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Research-JSSIR- brought out by the Humanities Department. Moreover, she has also introduced Research Methodology courses at postgraduate programme. Dr. Sajida has special expertise in developing instruments and tools for monitoring and evaluation – formative, process and impact. She is member of various committees of Pakistan. In addition, she has rich and diverse Applied Linguistics and ELT experience at leading academia as faculty, consultant, academic auditor and teacher educator.
She has been Invited as guest speaker at National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), AIR WAR College-Base Faisal, School of Army Air Defence- Malir, SZABIST, NEDUET, Dow University of Health Sciences in the areas of language and communication, teaching-learning and research.
Dr. Naziha Ali (LUMS, Pakistan)
Dr. Naziha currently works as Director of Training & Development at LUMS School of Education, Lahore where she manages professional development affairs in the academic and corporate segment. She is the first Pakistani to hold office of President (2015-2016) in the largest teachers’ association in the Middle East and has also chaired conferences of the association in Dubai. She has a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Exeter, UK. Her area of specialization is Continuous Professional Development of Teachers and she has contributed immensely to teacher development in the UAE as well as Pakistan through association with organizations such as TESOL Arabia, VistaBrainz and Vista Consult.
She has done a significant amount of work on in-house evaluation processes. She has also served as Vice President - Education of the TESOL Arabia Toastmasters Club and is currently involved in multiple teacher training projects in less privileged areas in Pakistan as well as co-editing a forthcoming volume on Language Teacher Research in Pakistan.
Prof. Dr. Maria M Gracia (UMT, Lahore)
Dr. Maria Isabel currently works at the Department of English Language and Literature. She holds PhD in Spanish Language & General Linguistics, from National University of Distance Education, Madrid, Spain. Her areas of interest are Languages, Translation and Linguistics.
She has got various trainings from different countries and has received many awards and honors from USA, Spain and Pakistan. Besides this, she is also chief editor of EURASIAN Journal of Humanities and Social Science and Al-Andalus Institute of Languages (Lahore/Malaga), and author of many research papers and chapters of books.