Along with her academic research, Maliha Ahmed is an accomplished teacher and is involved in community outreach and service to the university. She defies the caricature of the narrowly focused PhD. Ahmed鈥檚 research is in the field of computational neuroscience, where she investigates the thalamocortical system. She is working to create a computational tool that can simulate some of what happens in an actual human brain. 鈥淢y PhD research is an extension of my master鈥檚 research,鈥 said Ahmed. 鈥淚n that project, I was working on a model for a cortical circuit to study childhood absence seizures. Now I鈥檓 looking at the role of hormones in the resolution of these absence seizures.鈥 Before doing her master鈥檚 and then beginning a PhD, Ahmed became a certified teacher, completing a BEd at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Her teaching area was in physics and mathematics for junior high and high school students. She has continued her teaching and learning in graduate school, working as a teaching assistant and occasionally filling in for lectures. When asked what motivates her going forward, Ahmed pointed to inspirations within the Department of Applied Mathematics.聽
I see all these great scholars around me, like my supervisor Sue Ann Campbell. And like Anita Layton, Ghazal Geshnizjani, my committee members, and so many others in the department. I see their passion for what they do and their dedication to helping us grad students succeed. It鈥檚 very heartening. It聽motivates me to reach that level where I can give back in the same way.
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