The Lahore University of Management Sciences opened its doors for the first batch of MBA graduates in 1986 and for more than three decades, the University has excelled in the field of business management and sciences. In the last decade, it has also produced promising graduates in the field of science and technology.
LUMS as an Emerging Science and Engineering University
With the introduction of LUMS Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) in 2008, LUMS officially entered the category of universities offering Science and Engineering as a discipline. While a majority of Pakistani universities are unable to provide a proper research center to budding PhD students in Pakistan, the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) provides an encouraging research-oriented ecosystem backed with state-of-the-art labs. After more than a decade of its initiation, the Science & Engineering school has without a doubt played a crucial role in Pakistan’s research community.
The Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) in its short span of time has also provided a successful legacy of impressive graduates. Some of the most recent achievements by SBASSE graduates include:
- Akhtar Munir a PhD chemistry student at SBASSE under the supervision of Dr. Irshad Hussain (faculty at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering) published a review article on ChemSusChem in a High- Profile Journal
- 90% of the SBASSE students from the 2017, 2018 and 2018 Physics batch scored excellent marks (900 out of 990) in the ultra-competitive GRE Physics exam
- A team from the Department of Electrical Engineering (SBASSE) won first-runner up trophy at National Engineering Robotics Contest at NUST
- Another team of students from the Department of Electrical Engineering (SBASSE) qualified for the UAV Challenge Medical Express 2018, Australia, the SBASSE team was among the top 13 qualifying teams from across the world who participated in the competition.
With its CS graduates standing neck to neck with graduates from FAST NUCES, GIKI and NUST, the University has proved that their science and engineering programmes are as successful as their business programmes.
Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Programmes
The University offers a list of diversified programmes in the field of science, research, and technology. SBASSE offers a four- year undergraduate degrees of Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics. Furthermore, SBASSE also offers MS and PhD degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.
Financial Opportunities for Masters and PhD students
LUMS is providing some of the best financial opportunities for its Master and PhD students in Pakistan. Unlike any other university, LUMS offers a full tuition fee waiver to all of its PhD students (on merit). Furthermore, the University also provides a monthly assistance package in its Doctoral Programme to support the students and relieve them of any financial worry. Furthermore, during the academic year 2017-18, LUMS granted a total of over PKR 871 Million as financial support to its MS, which is unprecedented among any Pakistani university.
MS Programme
For the MS students, generous financial support in the form of stipends is given to those who work with instructors as research assistants and teacher assistants. The work-study programme provides part-time employment to graduates to help with university expenses.
PhD Programme
LUMS has an extremely strong and robust financial support system for its PhD students. It provides funding to PhD students in terms of scholarships. The PhD students in LUMS’s doctoral programme enjoy a full-time fee waiver along with monthly assistance packages.
Other forms of financial assistance include teaching assistant-ships and stipends to support faculty in research projects. Another plus point for the PhD students is that they are given the opportunity to make a name for themselves by getting their work published in top international journals if their research work is promising.
Highly-qualified Faculty
At LUMS, the faculty members are PhDs, hailing from the US, UK and Australia, and other advanced countries. As part of the university’s mission to promote research in the field of science and technology, the LUMS faculty is provided start-up grants to work on their researches and travel- grants at the start of joining to research and present their papers internationally.
Some of the recent achievements in the field of research by the LUMS SBASSE faculty include:
- In February 2019, Dr.Muhammad Faryad, Assistant Physics Professor won the 2019 Gallieno Denardo Award by the International Commission for Optics (ICO) and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) for his contributions to Optics research and education.
- In January 2019, Saad Zia Sheikh, a PhD student at the Department of Electrical Engineering at SBASSE along with his advisor Dr. Adeel Pasha, Assistant Professor and Director of the Electronics and Embedded Systems Lab (EESL) at SBASSE published their article on “Energy-Efficient Multicore Scheduling for Hard Real-Time Systems”, at a prestigious international journal.
- In October 2018, SBASSE Faculty spearheaded by Rd. Muhammad Tariq, Associate Professor, Department Of Biology presented their research on “new genes involved in maintenance of tissue specific gene activation” at EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany.
- In March 2018, SBASSE’s faculty paper on “Identification and characterization of SSE15206, a microtubule depolymerizing agent that overcomes multidrug resistance” was published in Nature Publishing Group’s scientific reports
Proper infrastructure for research backed by HEC
Owing to its impressive research set-up, the Office of Sponsored Programmes and Research (OSPR) was established on August 16, 2010, and manages all sponsored research-related activities of academic and research units and further act as a bridge between LUMS faculty and national/international sponsors. The mission of OSPR is to provide comprehensive support to the research faculty of LUMS and is further backed by the Higher Education Commission, which provides a grant of around PKR 10 Million annually.
Research Centre for Renewable Energy
Centre for Water Informatics and Technology (WIT)
Pakistan has faced serious water shortage concerns ever since its inception. Unfortunately, in the many decades since its creation, not much research was done to sort this impending danger. To resolve such severe issues, the Centre for Water Informatics & Technology (WIT) was established at The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
Situated in the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), WIT aims to serve as a hub with a disciplinary focus on hydro-informatics and systems analysis but touching multidisciplinary research themes in water by engaging faculty and students from all departments of SBASSE.
LUMS Energy Institute
Renewable energy is another department where Pakistan has lagged fairly behind other countries. Rising prices of petrol and lack of electricity in the country has made the use of renewable energies even more important for the country. The LUMS Energy Institute carries out interdisciplinary research in the area of renewable energy analytics, smart grids, medium and long term forecasting of energy demand, renewable energy generation and energy efficiency.
The broader goal of the Institute is to help Pakistan use 100% renewable sources for generating electricity by 2050.
It also works with the governmental agencies to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for long-term renewable energy plans for Pakistan.
The LUMS Ecosystem of Science and Engineering
LUMS as a university has presented a perfect example of how Pakistani universities can emulate the likes of MIT in the field of science and Technology. The building blocks of any technological advancement or any breakthrough discovery is the research and development (R & D) done behind it. The research ecosystem of PhD Management Programme at LUMS allows students to rigorously develop research ideas and consequently, produce top-quality research.
By providing state-of-the-art-labs, the best available faculty in Pakistan along with a robust financial system to support research-based work, the LUMS ecosystem ensures that the current and next generation of budding Pakistani scientists are well equipped with all the modern facilities and resources required to excel in the field of science and technology.
Monumental Steps in the Field of Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are currently the most researched fields in computer science. Due to their infinite potential and never-ending implementations, several countries from around the world are incorporating these technologies in their set-up. In a bid to accelerate the development of AI and Machine learning, the Computer Science Department at SBASSE is currently undertaking research in the realm of parallel algorithms for data mining, efficient message protocols, machine learning, and intelligent information processing.
The Department has fully equipped labs with hardware and software resources for the development and evaluation of algorithms and computational models for analysis of large structured and semi-structured date-sets.
Pakistan’s 1st National Centre in Big Data and Cloud Computing Housed at LUMS
Pakistan’s first national centre in Big data and Cloud computing was inaugurated at LUMS on May 4, 2018. With the digital age now entering a new era, this research centre could very well usher a new era of research in the field of data processing and cloud computing. The PKR 1.5 billion national centre will be housed at LUMS and will comprise of 12 ‘Affiliated’ Labs at 11 Universities around the country including LUMS, EME College, PNEC, UETL, UETP, ITU, SZABIST, FAST-NU, CECOS, Ziauddin University and UAF and employ 50 of the country’s leading Analytics and Cloud researchers.
State-of-the-art Labs
The state-of-the-art labs at the LUMS Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) are equipped with cutting-edge technology aimed to facilitate the students at the highest pedigree. The mission of the SBASSE Central Labs is to enhance multi-disciplinary research catering to the requirements of basic sciences and engineering core specialties. It houses cutting-edge equipment to facilitate all LUMS faculty, students and researchers to meet their scientific goals.
The SBASSE Central Labs also envisions themselves to become a regionally recognised multi-disciplinary facility dedicated to excellence in research and development. The facility is managed by a group of faculty members of SBASSE and assisted by technical staff who oversees the running and maintenance of the equipment. The SBASSE labs include:
- Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with EDX and E-beam lithography
- Physical Properties Measurement System
- Magnetron Sputtering
- Photolithography Lab
Other than the SBASSE labs, LUMS also boasts of several Computing Labs, Electrical Engineering Labs, and Research Labs Bio- Informatics Research Labs (BIRL) and Data Analytics labs.
A Robust Network of Maths and Engineering Societies
SPADES
Another impressive by-product of LUMS, SPADES is a student-run society comes with the purpose of promoting science, engineering, and providing science students from all over the country a golden chance to display their scientific and innovative talents. The society also holds multiple mega events for students from across the country. Some of these events include:
- PSIFI (Pakistan’s biggest Science Olympiad)
- Start-up Weekend (an entrepreneurial event powered by Google)
- LUMS Science Symposium (aims to make university-level research more common at school-level)
LSMS
LSMS is another impressive student-run mathematics society affiliated with Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). LSMS aims to nurture and cultivate interest in mathematics among the youth of today through a calendar of live events aimed to induce intellectual curiosity. LSMS also has a flagship event – SIGMA that essentially provides a platform to all the young minds of Pakistan where they can compete and nurture their problem-solving skills.
This story has been produced in collaboration with the sponsor, LUMS.
