Saima Hirani Pakistan 2015 Grantee US - Canada Program 2017 PhD in Nursing at the University of Alberta
Dr. Hirani, of the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery, Pakistan, won the University of Alberta’s Genevieve Gray PhD Medal in Nursing, which recognizes excellence in research and academics. She was also a Talaat Moreau Grantee. Her thesis was “Social Support Intervention to Improve Resilience and Quality of Life Among Women Living in Poor Urban Karachi”.
Saima has been an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing of the University of British Columbia since July 2020, where she started as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in July 2019.
Her work has focused on mental health and mental health promotion of socio-economically disadvantaged women and families in Pakistan. Saima’s commitment to women in children has been evident through her work with women in mental health facilities, in prison and survivors of rape and domestic violence. Her research aims to increase the understanding of how facilitated social support influences women’s resilience and mental health, in order to provide low cost yet relevant interventions.
A quote from Saima: “I didn’t have money to execute the research on the ground. I wanted to do something for women’s mental health, and in my search, I found Margaret McNamara Education Grants. I got this motivation, this encouragement, as I always see MM as a ray of hope in my life, because it has given me those wings to fly.”
Her most cited published works are:
The intersection of gender and resilience. - PsycNET (apa.org)
Confirming the Factor Structure of an Intuition Instrument for Nursing Students (snrs.org)
Her most recent published works are:
Associations between periods of COVID-19 quarantine and mental health in Canada - ScienceDirect
For a more complete list of publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mdMmYfAAAAAJ&hl=en
