Maha Yusuf, Stanford PHD Candidate ( Hesselink Group)
Azhar Rizvi’s Comments
Maha Yusuf is a chemical engineer from NUST and is now a PhD student at Stanford University’s School of Chemical Engineering. She is perhaps the most troublesome, but also my most favourite student. She is the first one to post a Father’s Day message on my FB wall for the past five years now, sometimes annoying my other daughters. She uses the time difference to her advantage.
Maha Yusuf is also happily married to another dear student of mine, Nasrullah. They first came to the Discover Business Plan competition at NUST with the piezoelectric shoe. Soon she was among the best and moved on to win the competition. She kept working on the idea even after the competition had concluded.
After completing her education and refusing jobs from ICI, Engro and other blue chip firms, she chose to join Schlumberger in Colombia (Latin America) as a Field Rig Engineer. As the only woman on the rig, her 18 months there were a nightmare for her parents and myself as she used to call in case of emergencies, sometimes twice and even thrice a day. But hats off to Maha for her persistence! She attended the trainings and was again top of her class at the company. Soon she was given the sensitive task of handling radioactive substance for drilling etc.
Her Aha! moment came when she went to the US for a conference and later to Draper University for a three-month training program in entrepreneurship. She did well in the program, by pitching her social entrepreneurship project. When Draper University offered her investment for her project, she declined it and instead requested to spend a day with her ideal, Sheryl Sandburg of Facebook, which she did. Now Maha is at Stanford University doing research for a project funded by a major automobile manufacturer. She is finally happy with what she is doing and totally focused on her work—a fact I can well assume based on the number of phone calls I used to get from her. They have dwindled from several in a week to once every couple of months.
From Jhang to Stanford – Profile of a Researchpreneur
Maha Yusuf belongs to a middle-class family from the Jhang district in Punjab. Her journey began in a Pakistani village where women were encouraged to start a family as soon as they turned 15. She became the first girl in her family to reach O levels. She went on to NUST to complete her BS in chemical engineering and maintained an outstanding GPA of 3.92 on a 4.00 scale. Leaving fantastic job offers at ICI and Engro to join Schlumberger, her first assignment was to go to Bogotá, Colombia, where she spent over a year on an oilrig. Many a times, she was the only woman on the team.
After her stint in Colombia, Maha went to Draper University on a prestigious entrepreneurship program, where she got a chance to meet her hero, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Founder of Leanin.org.
Today, Maha has proved to everyone, including herself that women can have it all. Having pushed cultural, gender and social boundaries, Maha is currently pursuing her PhD at Stanford University. She is also part of a research group at Stanford working on clean energy technologies.
