Post Date
May 19 2022

From Student to Superstar Teacher!

Amongst the proudest achievements for a teacher is witnessing the growth and success of their students. One such instance was recently shared by Dr. Abubakr from the Department of Electrical Engineering at SBASSE. This story revolves around the stellar achievement of SBASSE’s alumnus, Dr. Hasan Nasir, who graduated from the school in 2011.

Hasan Arshad Nasir went on to do his PhD from University of Melbourne, and then returned to Pakistan to join NUST as an assistant professor at SEECS a few years back. “I have received the news that Dr. Hasan Nasir has been awarded the solo​ university-wide best teacher award at NUST, across all their campuses, colleges, and faculties (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Risalpur, Karachi)”. The news heralds joy and happiness for those faculty members who have helped shape up Dr. Nasir’s student career at LUMS.

Recalling Dr. Hasan’s earlier years at SBASSE, Dr. Abubakr said “Hasan joined us as a lab engineer at a very young electrical engineering department, when SSE was a small operation running from a few rooms on top of the Pepsi Dining Center. Working sometimes from lounges and pantries due to the absence of office spaces, Hasan helped me design and operationalize the home-grown control systems teaching lab, which is still in operation today. He later joined our MS computer engineering program and produced an MS thesis that laid the foundations for what later evolved into a whole Center for Water Informatics and Technology (WIT). In 2012, he was admitted to an extremely competitive PhD program in electrical engineering at University of Melbourne where he continued the theme of his MS work to invent control techniques for flooding. After his return from Australia, he has continued to maintain a very strong research linkage with WIT center and helped supervise our students in EE.” 

“His research achievements had already made us extremely proud but now with his recognition in teaching, it has reinforced my belief that top-class teaching and impactful research go hand in hand.”, Dr. Abubakr emphasized.

Paying a heartfelt homage to Dr. Abubakr, Dr. Nasir shared an unfeigned message for Dr. Abubakr, “I learnt different methods of teaching and building the relation with the students from you from 2009-2012. You would be surprised, but I follow those practices, and I want to dedicate this award to you.”

After his PhD, Dr. Nasir spent another two years at The University of Melbourne as a Post-Doc researcher, before joining the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS), NUST as an Assistant Professor. His research interests include optimization-based control and system identification, with water and power systems as the main application areas.