2024 Executive Council Election


There are two candidates for the position of PDFA president:

  • AKM Shahid Ullah, the current president of the PDFA, and
  • Abdullah Mohiuddin, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

You can read the biographies submittted by the two candidates below.

 

Shahid Ullah

 

Dr. Shahid Ullah

Dr. Shahid Ullah is presently a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Medicine. His current research is centred around cardiovascular failure; particularly transplant rejection, transplant vasculopathy and angiogenesis with the aim of reducing morbidity and mortality associated with transplant rejection.

Dr. Ullah earned his PhD in Renal Physiology from the University of Alberta, where he also completed his MSc in Physiology, Cell, and Developmental Biology. Prior to that, he pursued a Masters in Public Health at the renowned James P. Grant School of Public Health and a BSc in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in Bangladesh.

Throughout his academic journey, Dr. Ullah has actively engaged in various student organizations and community initiatives, including food bank drives, winter clothing collections, and blood donation drives. He has been an integral part of the PDFA executive committee, serving in roles such as member-at-large (2022-2023), vice-president internal (2023), interim president (2023) and he currently holds the position of PDFA president (2023-2024). Dr. Ullah is enthusiastic about continuing his tenure as president of the PDFA, committed to contributing wholeheartedly with his skills and dedication to benefit the postdoctoral community.

 
Abdullah Mohiuddin

 

Dr. Abdullah Mohiuddin

Postdoc fellows deserve to get something out of a postdoc. There should be a vision of the postdoc fellowship program which should be to train postdoc fellows to turn into PIs. Current PIs should be mandated to have a career progression plan for postdocs. There should be accountability and public dissemination of the stats of outputs of this program, such as how many postdocs from UoA end up as faculty members or senior scientists or if the program helped them to get an industrial Job. The salaries should be more for postdocs. The least salary should be where full CPP contribution is made. The only benefit of the postdoc program should not be potential immigration opportunities to Canada. This is what I want to work for. That is all.

The campaign period will start on September 9, 2024 and end on September 23, 2024.

Online voting in the election will be open from Monday, September 23 at noon until Friday, September 27, 2024 at 11:55 pm. All active PDFA members will their virtual ballot, and instructions on how to vote via email on September 23.
Because only one candidate put their name forward, the following candidates have been acclaimed to their positions and no election is required:

VP External: Alsayed Mostafa
VP Internal: Md Shaheen
VP Operations: Razieh Firouzihaji
VP Communications: Ayesha Iqbal
VP Finance: Simran Kaur Dhillon
Member-at-Large: Henry Prown

Three member-at-large positions remain open.

The new executive will assume their positions on October 1, 2024.