I am a doctoral student at the University of Malta in the project entitled “Development of multi-scaling strategies” under the supervision of Prof. Vasilis and Prof. Ruben. My research interest includes analyzing the fungal and bacterial ecosystem and understanding their functionality and impact on the ripening of cheese. It also focuses on the collection of macroscopic data and the development of models for the characterization of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters on microbial responses integrating with Omics data.

Before coming to Malta University, I completed a master’s degree in biotechnologies for food sciences from the University of Padova, where I was nominated for the Padova International Excellence Master Scholarship. In the summer of 2020, I interned at the Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Nutrition, the University of Padova, under Prof. Martino Cassandro to identify microbe, total antioxidant activity, and coagulation properties of milk obtained from the alpine region of Italy. For my master’s research, I opted to work in dairy science and microbiology at NMBU, Norway. My Master thesis was entitled “Identification and characterization of Bacteriocin produced by Bacteria isolated from raw cow milk.” This research aimed to identify new bacteriocin and bacteriocin-producing microbes using microbial and molecular techniques, i.e., NGS, PCR, HPLC and MS to treat pathogenic mastitis infection and increase food safety of dairy products.

I am originally from Pakistan, where I studied bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) in Lahore. In addition to my undergrad studies, I was appointed as a Research Assistant working in the food chemistry and food science department. I developed my research skills and arose a research interest in Food Biotechnology, leading me to pursue a master’s degree. In addition, I also worked as Photographer, which was initiated as a hobby, Lab Technician in Pathology Lab, and biology teacher to nourish my teaching, collaborative, management, and communication skills.