uMentor Talk Show

Mujtaba Murji:

Mujtaba is currently a product manager at Bloomberg focusing on performance measurement tools. He works closely with many of the top institutional investment firms in the world to improve product offering and drive revenue. He has over 8 years of experience working with investment professionals, portfolio managers and performance analysts. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Mujtaba was with Barclays’ Portfolio and Risk Analytics group.

Mujtaba holds a bachelor’s degree in Econ-Math from Columbia University. He is a CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) charter holder and a member of the NYSSA (New York Society of Security Analysts).

Azra Naqvi:

Azra Naqvi is the Principal and Founding Member of Hadi School of Excellence, a private Islamic school in Schaumburg, Illinois. She has served in this role for the past 15 years. Azra received a Bachelors degree in Accounting from DeVry University prior to joining Hadi School. She received a Masters degree in Education Leadership from Argosy University, and is currently working towards a doctorate from National Louis University. Her future school is to serve the educational profession by taking an active role in the professional organization, as well as transforming the quality of education, at Hadi School.

Fatim Walli:

Fatim is a Registered Early Childhood Educator and an Ontario Certified Teacher with 10 plus years of experience working with children, families and professionals in various learning environments. She currently works with Aisling Discoveries Child and Family Centre, an assigned service provider agency through the City of Toronto’s Every Child Belongs service, as a Special Needs Resource Consultant. It’s primary purpose is to support child care programs in building their capacity to support children with various needs to participate in the program. Planning and goal setting begins from the view of the child/children considering their development, social-emotional well-being and the diversity of the famly, home and community.

Prior to this position, Fatim worked with Newcomer families in the Outreach and Family Services Department in programs such as Prenatal Parenting, Healthy Beginnings for Healthy Babies, Early ON, School Readiness and Caregiver Support Network.

She holds a B.A. in Early Childhood Education from Ryerson University, a B.Ed from The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and a M.A.from Ryerson University in Early Childhood Studies.

Komail Lakha:

Komail lakha is a Senior Recruiter/Talent Sourcer at Target Corporation. Komail earned his BS degree in Finance and Communication at the University of Minnesota. He has worked in corporate capacity for over 7 years.

At Target, he started his career in Supply Chain for 3 years and transitioned into HR as a Recruiter for over 4 years. Komail has worked supporting the following industries in recruiting- Finance, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Technology and Pharmacy. He highly suggests you shop at Target for all your needs!

Sajjad Haiderali:

Sajjad is a network engineer with over six years of experience specializing in packet-optical transport platform. He is currently employed with Juniper Networks working as a technical support engineer, assisting vendors globally with everyday tasks such as implementing and scaling optical networks, and troubleshooting issues that subsequently arise. The unique position of working as a support engineer affords him the ability to work with clients and engineering teams, pursuing his passion of mentoring clients and being mentored by industry veterans. Sajjad attended Western University for Software Engineering and has been working in the networking industry ever since.

Heena Musabji:

The first person to volunteer with Pro Bono Network and one of the individuals most responsible for its growth, Heena took on the role of PBN Board President prior to coming on as staff. She is simultaneously the Principal Attorney at the Musabji Law Offices, focusing on immigration and nationality law.

Previously, Ms. Musabji was a partner at Amal Law Group heading the immigration department. She was CAIR-Chicago’s first Staff Attorney, counseling its constituency on civil rights and immigration. During and after law school, Heena served as the Director of the Sex Trafficking Opposition and Prevention Project with the International Human Rights Law Institute were she worked on legislation and advocacy of minors forced into sex tourism in Costa Rica. She worked with the National Immigrant Justice Center throughout law school, and continues with the organization as a volunteer.

She recently served as Vice President of the Board for the Muslim Civil Liberties Union, and is also on the board at her mosque. Heena has been on the board at West Suburban Montessori School and at the Terraces of Oak Park. She holds B.S. in Finance from Siena College and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.

Alijawad Hasham:

Alijawad is an actuary with over eight years of (re)insurance experience and a focus on financial reporting, modeling and reinsurance. He is currently at Swiss Re leading the Principle-Based Reporting implementation team tasked with ensuring readiness from a pricing, valuation, financial reporting, governance and systems point of view.

Alijawad has served various roles in actuarial transformation, model validation and corporate modeling teams where he converted legacy platforms, validated models, and analyzed business portfolios. Prior to joining Swiss Re, Alijawad was with a large actuarial consultancy and audit firm.

Alijawad holds a bachelor’s degree in economics with a concentration in actuarial science and finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Asad Raza:

*Over 10 years of experience in designing and deploying healthcare strategies and solutions. I specialize in identifying and analyze needs, creating unique solutions for profitable outcomes and implementing solutions across both fee-for-service and fee-for-value healthcare business landscapes.

*Currently work as Senior Business Innovation and Strategy Manager for Medtronic plc.

*M.S. & B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University with concentrations in Solution Design, Voice of Customer & Business, Analytics & Intelligence.

*Minors in Business, Mathematics and Communication

For information please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asad-raza-695b0768/

Arif Soonasra:

Arif Soonasra is a medical director at the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer. Arif earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy at the University of the Sciences, Philadelphia, PA. Arif has over 10 years of experience in medical information, medical education, and currently in medical affairs where he has been for nearly 4 years. Although not the typical pharmacist role, Arif has been able to apply his education to the various roles he has worked in over the years. Since he graduated, he has seen and experienced the many different opportunities a pharmacy degree can be applied to.

Zainab Khalfan:

Zainab has been a pediatric nurse for 11 years and a certified lactation counselor for the past 3 years. She graduated with my BSN in 2007 and began my career on the pediatric med/surg unit at PennState Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. A few years later I moved back to Allentown and started working on the Pediatric unit at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Currently she works at a pediatrician’s office.

Abbas Kanji:

Abbas Kanji has over 18 years of experience in investment advisory and real estate direct investments. In his various roles Abbas was directly responsible for the acquisition of properties, asset management, planning & monitoring of property renovations and establishing & maintaining relationships with institutional investors and lenders. Throughout his career Abbas has acquired and/or had oversight over 9,000 multifamily units and participated in over $1.4 billion in real estate transactions. Abbas received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University (B.A. Economics) and his MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Kazima Wajahat:

Kazima Wajahat has a bachelor’s degree in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology with a minor in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Communication Disorders. Everything she has ever desired to accomplish in life has always revolved around her passion for children.

Kazima has been practicing as an SLP for 8 years in various settings from inpatient, outpatient, private practice and schools. In 2017, trying to fulfill a need for high quality Islamic children’s books, she wrote and published a book called “Mikaeel and Malaika The Quest for Love” and conducts presentations and story times at various Islamic schools and Masjids. Book overview is here: www.flowersofmygarden.com

Recently, Kazima began an Instagram series called “For the Love of Learning” where she discuss pertinent issues such as child language development and learning, parenting, and education approaches. Through this platform she offers personal consults and coaches parents and educators based on their concerns. Her Instagram is: flowers_of_my_garden.

This past month Kazima began a blog that touches on the same topics: https://www.flowersofmygarden.com/theblog/

Dr. Jawaad Sheriff:

Dr. Jawaad Sheriff is a Research Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University. He is also collaborates with the University of Arizona, Vanderbilt University, Oregon Health & Science University, and Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy.

Jawaad graduated from the University at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Sciences in Mechanical Engineering and received a Doctorate of Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship and research scientist training with the Biofluids Research Group, in which he serves as the Lab Manager, in addition to his duties as a research professor.

Jawaad works on a variety of research projects, including evaluation of clotting risk in cardiovascular devices (blood pumps, artificial heart, and prosthetic valves), development of mathematical models to predict clotting risk in cardiovascular diseases and devices, and comparison of blood platelet response in adults and newborns. Jawaad belongs to professional organizations such as the Biomedical Engineering Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the New York Academy of Science. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, authored a book chapter, and presented at several regional, national, and international conferences.

Jawaad enjoys giving back to the community, especially when it comes to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers. In addition to training high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in the lab, Jawaad gives guest lectures at Stony Brook University and other local institutions. He is a member of the Umoja Outreach Foundation uMentor team, Stony Brook Alumni mentors, and assists the University of Buffalo in local recruitment efforts. Off-campus, he enjoys spending time with family, long-distance running, traveling, and writing the occasional blog post.

Sameer Tejani:

Sameer Tejani is a software engineer currently working on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform – Azure. He previously worked on other Microsoft products including SQL Server and Windows.

Sameer graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Master’s degree in Computer Science. Prior to that he studied at the City College of New York where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.

Sameer spent multiple years volunteering at IMAN – a local Islamic community organization in Seattle – where he served on the Executive Committee and taught at the Sunday School. In his spare time, Sameer enjoys road biking and hiking in the Pacific Northwest. He lives with his wife and daughter in the Greater Seattle area.

Berak Hussain:

Berak Hussain is the International Students Counsellor at the Health and Counselling clinic at a local University in Ottawa. She has a BA in Psychology and a Master’s in Educational Counselling from the University of Ottawa, and has been counselling students for 9 years now. At the Health and Counselling Services, she helps students from all sorts of backgrounds through issues ranging from anxiety, depression, stress, culture shock, identity challenges, suicide, relationships issues and more. Berak has participated in many counselling- and community-related events, presenting on the topic of Islamic Counselling to local practitioners over the years, in the hopes of sharing common ideas on how to best support faith-based clients. Berak believes that counselling is her calling and that her desire to help people is not through the cell from the medical point of view, but rather through the soul. With the help of university students, Berak spearheaded the successful Serenity Islamic Mental Health Awareness initiative with monthly psychoeducational presentations that lead up to the 3 day conference in May 2016. This Conference was named by the Canadian media as Canada’s’ first Muslim Mental Health Conference. International media such as Karbala TV also took notice of the Serenity Conference and reported on the success of such a groundbreaking attempt of breaking the silence on mental health in the Muslim community: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=CvV1L5qQyL8&feature=youtu.be

Berak also presented on the 5 Ws of Accessing Mental Health Resources at the first Canadian Muslim Mental Health Conference in Toronto with the Canadian Muslim Medical Association. She has also created a Facebook/Instagram forum called “The Muslim Counsellor” to discuss and explore these issues and works on video series exploring relevant issues for Muslims living in the West through the lens of Mental Health.

She completed a whirlwind U.K & Australia (2017) & UK (2018) tour holding seminars, workshops, live and TV interviews discussing and exploring Muslim mental health in the Muslim communities abroad.

Allireza Alloo:

Dr. Allireza Alloo is a board certified dermatologist and Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. He is also the Associate Program Director for the Dermatology Residency Training Program as well as the Co-Director of the Inpatient Consultation Service at Northwell Health.

Dr. Alloo graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior and went on to attend medical school at Harvard Medical School. He completed his dermatology training at the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency Program, where he served as Chief Resident in his final year.

Dr. Alloo’s clinical and research interests include complex medical dermatology, inpatient dermatology, autoimmune blistering diseases, and cutaneous toxicities to chemotherapy. Dr. Alloo belongs to various organizations including the American Academy of Dermatology, the Association of Professors in Dermatology, the Society of Dermatology Hospitalists, and the Medical Dermatology Society. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed literature, authored several book chapters, as well as given talks at local, regional, and national dermatology conferences.

Dr. Alloo is otherwise dedicated to improving access to dermatologic care for the underserved, participating in community service, and enhancing resident and medical student education and mentorship within dermatology. In his spare time, he enjoys playing sports, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Find more information at https://umojaoutreach.org/mentor/talkshow/prior-talk-shows/may-19-2018-2-3/