ZARA QIZILBASH: FIRST FEMALE REGISTRAR OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Louisa Neill, LVI and Jiayi (Ariel) Cao, LVI

Zara Qizilbash is the first female registrar of one of the top universities in Pakistan, known informally as LUMS. She studied condensed matter physics at the University of Oxford and is now a mentor, a supporter of women in STEM in Pakistan and a Governor of Roedean School in Brighton.

LOUISA: IF YOU WOULDN’T MIND, COULD YOU START OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF?

Zara: I’m based in Lahore, Pakistan, and I’m currently the Registrar at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. It was set up in the 80s and it’s one of the best universities in Pakistan and South Asia and it’s grown to encompass the School of Science and Engineering, School of Management, School of Arts and Humanities, School of Education and School of Law. I’m honoured to be the first female registrar of this university. It’s a demanding job. [I grew] up in Pakistan, but I went to Roedean School, Brighton for my A Levels. And after that I was admitted to the University of Oxford, Somerville College. I did my degree in Physics there specialising in condensed matter physics.

One of my main passions is to encourage more young women to take up science and engineering subjects, although of course the humanities are equally important. When I went back to Pakistan there were not that many opportunities for women in physics. It was like a sort of closed door. So, I joined the family business where I could use some technical skills. I was lucky enough to be asked to join the Lahore School of Science and Engineering when it was being set up in the year 2007. There were not that many experimental physicists at that time in Pakistan and they asked me to help work on the physics lab. So that was very exciting, and I joined and then it just grew and grew, and it was a start-up. The idea was to have a transdisciplinary school where people could take subjects across all majors. It was sort of American in its concept. We wanted to help [students] so that they would still have careers 40 years after they graduated. So, I worked there and then I ended up heading the academic affairs for the whole school, which had majors in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering, and so I worked eight years and after that I felt that things had become quite stable and I had the opportunity to work on a tech start-up with my brother, which was a an E-procurement platform called KHAREED, which was very new at that time because it was all about transparency and the corporate marketplace, so that was very exciting. I did that for four years and then I was asked by LUMS to consider coming back as the Registrar because they wanted the office to be looked at full time.

I’m very fond of the university and working in an academic environment. There are so many bright young people around and you learn so much from your peers as well. I also had the opportunity to work with the Punjab government. Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan. I worked with them in a project called Women in Leadership where they were looking to identify women who were professional and who could join public sector boards to influence decision making to make a difference to the lives of women in different areas. I’m now in a few public sector boards, including the Queen Mary College Lahore, which is a very old institution, and we are working to improve the quality of education for young women there and trying to see if we can turn it into a university.

In my spare time I talk about STEM and the importance of women in science. I’m a proponent of science for women and men. I don’t really distinguish, but I do understand that women are less privileged.

ARIEL: YOU’VE CLEARLY HAD A VERY VARIED CAREER. ARE THERE ANY BIG MOMENTS IN YOUR JOB THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GLAD THAT YOU’RE WORKING IN THIS FIELD?

Zara: When I’m able to make a difference in somebody’s life. For example, students come to me, and they have some problems or something that I can help with, and then they write back and thank me. It’s that feeling that you’re making a difference. It’s not just a desk job. When you say registrar, it sounds like, “Whoa, what is she doing?”

I’m really, really pleased to say that when I joined the School of Science and Engineering, we handpicked the first batch [of students], this was the Class of 2012 that came in 2008. Just to see those kids come in and study and grow and leave. Believe it or not, some of them have come back to the University to teach as professors. They went on to do their Master’s and PhD’s and now they’ve come back to be part of that same ecosystem and to contribute to science education in Pakistan. It’s just an amazing feeling that you may have contributed to somebody’s life and made a difference. I think that makes my job worthwhile for me.

I started reading science fiction… that really got me interested in science and physics.

LOUISA: WHAT INITIALLY SPARKED YOUR INTEREST IN PHYSICS? COULD YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT THE CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS THAT YOU SPECIALISED IN AT OXFORD?

Zara: I’d like to say that I had amazing teachers at my school, and they really inspired me, but (I probably shouldn’t say this in a public interview), it was the opposite, I didn’t.

I think my interest in physics started because my father was very keen that I read up on science, and so I started reading science fiction, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke. That really got me interested in science and physics. Of course, you must be interested in maths as well. [I found] my O Level (GCSE) Physics very difficult. The teaching left something to be desired, it was more of a challenge for me, so I was determined that I would do my best, and so I think I worked harder at that than anything else. And then I did well and when I went to Roedean, which is an amazing school, I had incredible teachers and so they made up for the slack and really helped and guided me. That passion had been nurtured enough and I knew that I would just be happy doing Physics and Maths. I was also doing economics, but that was sort of on the side. It’s a great discipline, but I was really into physics, and I was lucky enough to be accepted to Oxford where the teaching is a one-to-one tutorial system, very rigorous. You can’t slack off at all. You’ve got to be ready for those lessons. That was an amazing experience. Oxford is known for its condensed matter and the research in that area, so I was drawn to it and a lot of it is about materials and how substances behave at very low temperatures and magnetism and spin. I was drawn to that area because by the time that you choose a particular option, you’ve done everything, and you know what you’re interested in. I did that with atomic physics, which I didn’t find as interesting as condensed matter. It has a lot of applications in industry of course, and my thought was I would go back to Pakistan, and I could do a lot with it there. I was wrong about it at that time, but that’s how it came to be.

LOUISA: HOW DOES WORKING AS A REGISTRAR AND IN STEM IN PAKISTAN DIFFER FROM DOING THE SAME IN EUROPE?

Zara: As a registrar, my job is to run the academic management of the university. It’s not directly linked to physics so much anymore, it’s more about actually overseeing everything. I oversee all the academics of the schools, so basically when students come in, they become our responsibility. [I also oversee] the scheduling and the enrolment of their courses. Of course, we get the grades, but we [also] handle how to post them. At the end of their time, so once a student graduates, the Registrar’s office issues the degrees and transcripts. That’s what my office handles and I have about 25 people working with me as a team. My work at the School of Science and Engineering and in physics helps because I understand a lot of how the academia works, so that’s a bonus. But as far as STEM in Pakistan and the Middle East, it all depends on the facilities. I would say that where I’m working, we are lucky to have amazing research scientists come back and we’re giving back to the country and the facilities are second to none. But overall, in Pakistan because it’s a poor country there’s a lot of human resources, but we probably haven’t put the investment into our infrastructure that we should have. I would say that we are lagging behind Europe, but not because there’s a lack of brain power or people. It’s just a lack of opportunity. [The] education

system is split between the majority of people doing the Pakistani education system and people who are luckier. I don’t like the word elite, but you could say that there’s a percentage of the population that [can afford to do] the British system GCSEs and A Levels of which we are a part, and so those people are more privileged, and they’re able to go abroad to get exposure to the best universities and some of them choose to stay abroad. That’s a brain drain. If they come back then [that’s good], but [just] a few people can’t make such a difference. That’s why in terms of infrastructure and investment we are lagging behind.

ARIEL: HOW DO YOU THINK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS MOTIVATE THEMSELVES TO KEEP GOING WHEN THEY HAVE DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO WORKING IN LABS AND POSSIBLY DOING REPETITIVE EXPERIMENTS WITHOUT ANY MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS?

Zara: Well, the breakthroughs that you speak of are a result of years and years of hard work and passion. So, I think the passion keeps them going because they’ve got something in their hand, and they believe that they’re going to achieve something [but] not every scientist has a public breakthrough. So, when you know this has been invented, or this has been discovered, there are teams working. I wouldn’t call it failure, but you know, it’s like for every success you understand that there must have been 100 failures behind it, but you learn from each mistake or each error and at some point, you refine what you’ve done and then you get what you call a breakthrough. So, there’s ground-breaking research going on in every field, and physics is no exception. It’s about passion.

LOUISA: THAT’S SO INTERESTING TO HEAR. I REALLY HOPE WE SEE MORE SCIENTISTS AND PEOPLE IN STEM COMING FROM PAKISTAN AND COUNTRIES LIKE IT IN THE FUTURE. HERE’S A QUESTION FROM OUR OTHER EDITOR, CLEO – WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE INDECISIVE ABOUT CHOOSING PHYSICS FOR A LEVEL?

Zara: At the stage you’re at, it’s a little early. Some of you may know what you want to do because you’ve known for a couple of years. For example, somebody who’s very much into art might already know that they want to go into that field, but you may not know if you want to do [physics]. Somebody who’s interested in physics and maths could go into computer science. They could go into engineering. They could go into mathematics. There are lot of other fields, so why [not]? It’s all about problem solving [and that] teaches you how to think, so my whole career is a testament to the fact that you don’t need to stay in physics if you’ve done physics, you know, because some people are like ‘what will you do? Will you just teach?’ It’s the kind of discipline that you can just do anything with it. You can go into finance; physicists are very much in demand in [that area]. Physics just teaches you how to think and solve problems. It’s up to you what to do with those skills once you’ve learned them.

But how to choose the area you want to go into? I always tell my children that they need to look at their passion and what gives them a thrill. Then they need to look at which places offer courses in that area. So that’s how you should choose. You must read up and see what really thrills you. And then choose accordingly. Don’t go by the name of the university or the college or whatever. Find the place that offers what you want to do. That’s how I think you should choose a university. For example, in my case, when the school suggested I try for Oxbridge, I didn’t know whether I should go for Cambridge. So, I looked at the courses and at that time there was no Internet. The Internet was created the summer of that year. We had email, but not the whole World Wide Web, which by the way was also created by an Oxford professor! We didn’t have Google; we didn’t have access to all these things. We had to open books and see what Cambridge offered, what Oxford offered, and when I looked at them, Cambridge had a system where I would have to do geology and other things, so I was not interested. And then when I looked at Oxford it was physics, physics, maths, physics, and more physics and I said, OK, that appeals to me. You will know when you get that little thrill! That’s the sign that you’re interested so follow that passion and then it won’t seem like a challenge. You’ll enjoy it. That would be my advice.

LOUISA AND ARIEL: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TALKING TO US. WE REALLY APPRECIATE THAT YOU’VE GIVEN UP YOUR TIME AND EVERYTHING WE’VE HEARD FROM YOU HAS JUST BEEN SO FASCINATING. THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN!

Full interview can be accessed here: https:// downehouseschoolmy.sharepoint. com/:v:/g/personal/ neilll_downehouse_net/ ESVufkkV3ohDs0hYjIr8 unUBip5WUHy5JaQcK gS2jkmJmw?email= NeillL%40downehouse. net