An academic journey from Kashmir valley to Harvard University | Dr. Shabir Hassan

DAF presents a new web-series: #ProfilesInExcellence Every one of us understands the importance of education—both for an individual and for the community. What remains often unknown is how to navigate the path to attain a good education. In our new web-series, we will talk to individuals who have attained excellence—in academia, private industry, and entrepreneurship. The idea is to learn from the successes—and the failures—of these individuals. For our first episode, we discussed the journey of becoming an academic with Shabir Hassan, PhD, who is a biomedical scientist at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Dr. Shabir Hassan completed his bachelor’s in Chemistry, Biology, and English from the University of Kashmir and his master’s in Biotechnology from the University of Pune. After a year of research in molecular biology through LSZGS of UZH/ETH Zurich, he moved to a spectroscopy lab for his PhD. He uses ultrafast laser spectroscopy to study protein folding, aggregation and photo-thermal effects in proteins in real time. After his PhD, he won the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) fellowship in 2016 to carry out his research at Harvard Medical School in drug and metabolite delivery applications of novel nanoparticles targeting diseases and other medical conditions.