Aga Khan University Alumni Association of North America
Connecting AKU Alumni in North America
For attending the reunion, follow this link: https://forms.gle/Cn68q395jyat1zjr6
For attending the CME sessions, follow this link: https://portal.ideasregistration.com/appna/member/login
Dear Alumni,
The AKUAANA Inaugural Meeting and Gala, 2025 is taking place from September 19-21, 2025 in Houston, Texas at Marriott Sugar Land.
With over 1000 AKUMC alumni in practice in USA, the three-day event is expected to be a large, first-of-its-kind event with attendance by physicians from not only North America, but also overseas international graduates and practicing physicians with their families. The meeting will include academic sessions, networking events, a formal gala, and wellness activities.
Alumni interested in attending this exciting event can register here.
For those interested in sponsoring the event, further details can be found on the event sponsorship page.
President, AKUAANA: Faisal Wasi
Meeting Chair: Mirwat Sami
Meeting Co-Chair: Nooruddin Punjwani
Dear Alumni, the AKUAANA Annual Meeting for 2020 is scheduled for 11:30 AM EST on December 12, 2020.
The Business Meeting will include President, Secretary and Treasurer’s reports and will be followed by a brief Q/A session.
Thereafter, attendees will get an opportunity to hear from Guest Speakers and shall have plenty of time to virtually hang out with friends, colleagues as well as the leadership of both AKU & AKUAANA.
Alumni interested in attending the Meeting can register here.
Please consider signing up for AKUAANA membership if you aren’t a member already.
AKUAANA Executive Council
President: Faisal Cheema | Secretary: Abdul Waheed | Treasurer: Tauseef ur Rehman | Immediate Past President: Namirah Jamshed
Dear friends, we are excited to share that AKUAANA is hosting a webinar on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – Challenges for the International Medical Graduate.
The event is scheduled on Saturday, November 28th 2020 at 10 AM Central Standard Time.
The panelists of the webinar include the following alumni:
Academic Success: Lessons learned as a Woman, Mother and Scientist over 30 years
Maliha Zahid MD, AKU ’93
Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental Biology and Cardiology, University of Pittsburgh
Chief Scientific Officer & Board Member, Vivasc Therapeutics Inc., Pittsburgh PA
Unboxing Hidden Personal Biases and Continuing Struggles
Faisal G. Qureshi MD, MBA, AKU ’93
Associate Professor, Surgery & Pediatrics
Directory, Surgical Weight Loss Program, UT Southwestern and Children’s Medical Center
Small Town Pakistan to Surgery
Tayyaba M. Malik MD, AKU ’14
4th Year General Surgery Resident, UTSW
Cardiovascular and Thoracic Fellow, 2021
Moderator
Namirah Jamshed MD, AKU ’96
Associate Professor, Internal Medicine & Family and Community Medicine
Medical Director of the UTSW Care of the Vulnerable Elderly (COVE) Home-Based Primary Care Program UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas TX
The event will be hosted on Zoom, and is open for colleagues from all institutions. Please register here for the webinar.
Please consider signing up for AKUAANA membership if you aren’t a member already.
Looking forward to your attendance and discussion in this webinar.
AKUAANA Executive Council
Faisal H. Cheema, President | Abdul Waheed, Secretary | Tauseef-Ur-Rehman, Treasurer | Namirah Jamshed, Immediate Past President
Dr Adil Haider, Class of ’98 and Dean of AKU Medical College, is pleased to host an event for the AKUMC alumni at AKU, Karachi on January 3, 2019. The event includes campus tours for alumni and their families followed by brunch with friends and faculty.
If you are interested in attending the event, kindly register by completing this brief form. Please note that the last date to register for the Alumni Brunch – Winter 2019 is Sunday, December 30, 2018.
Dear Alumni,
A large number of AKU alumni and their families gathered in July at the APPNA 41st Annual Convention, 2018 at the stately Anatole Hilton in Dallas, Texas. The Executive Council presented their reports in the AKUAANA General Body Meeting. Minutes of the General Body Meeting are available on the website.
The General Body Meeting was followed by the AKUAANA Annual Dinner which was attended by more than 200 alumni and spouses and featured milestone celebrations of Classes of AKU ‘88, AKU ‘93 and AKU ‘98. The Class of ‘88 celebrated its 30-year milestone. It was inspiring to have members of our first graduating class present at the meeting. Dr. Shahid Shafi spoke passionately and eloquently at the dinner and challenged us to reach our maximal potential.
We had more than 20 alumni each from the class of ’93 and class of ’98 attend and celebrate their 25-year and 20-year milestones respectively. Both classes announced gifts of $250,000, each, to AKU to mark this occasion.
Dr. Ayesha Mian ’88 the Dean of Students, Mr. Abdul Haq Wahedna from Alumni Affairs and Mr. Shaikh Ali Hussain from Resource Development represented AKU at the meeting and hosted a well-attended breakfast for AKU alumni the morning after the dinner.
Many of us were meeting for the first time after graduating from AKU. We were struck at how comfortable we felt interacting with old friends and colleagues and how the years just fell away as if we had never been apart. Spouses and families were equally involved, and it was great to see our children forming their own ties of friendship. A silent auction of artwork by our own graduates raised funds for philanthropic causes.
We look forward to seeing many more of you at the next AKUAANA Annual Meeting during the APPNA 42nd Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida in July 2019.
Our best regards,
Namirah Jamshed, President
Noor Afshan, Secretary
Faisal Cheema, Treasurer
Azam Kundi ’92, Homayon Sidiq ’92, Nooruddin Punjwani ’95, Athar Qureshi ’96, Abbas Jafri ’97, Faisal H. Cheema ’00, Fyza Piracha ’01 and Sabeen Najam ’02 hosted a terrific regional reunion for AKU alumni in the Greater Houston region, on October 14, 2017. They had a fantastic turnout, with 115 alumni attending the event. The event was attended by Habib Chotani ’95, current President of AKUAANA, who has shared a brief recap of the event.
Abdul Basit Saeed, ’07
Web Manager, AKUAANA
====================
Dear AKUAANA Family,
We had an amazing turnout at the AKUAANA Regional Reunion in Houston on October 14, 2017, with people coming from Houston, Austin, Dallas and other adjoining areas. In attendance were more than 265 people, including 115 alumni representing classes over a span of three decades (our first graduating Class of 1988 to a student of 2020).
The event was very well organized along with kids’ activities including balloon making, face painting and a kids-friendly dinner. The kids obviously had a blast.
Dr Javed Akhtar, AKU faculty now residing in Texas was our guest of honor.
Dr Pervaiz Iqbal, Acting Dean of AKU, was able to send the following video message to the alumni:
We greatly appreciate ITHP-VCare Foundation for sponsoring this event; without their financial support, this event would simply not have been possible.
The work that has been done by AKUAANA over the last few years was presented.
We also showed a short video of the AKUAANA Outreach Clinic in Ibrahim Hyderi, and presented the most recent Impact Report of the project.
Namirah Jamshed, ’96, our incoming President for 2108 – 19 introduced herself and requested alumni in attendance to join AKUAANA and become lifetime members.
During the devastation of Hurricane Harvey many of the Houston alumni were personally affected. Our AKUAANA initiative, in collaboration with the Alumni in the area decided to contribute to the rebuilding efforts for the city of Houston. We are pleased to announce that AKUAANA raised almost $10,000! The money has already been donated to the Houston Mayor’s office. Efforts by the AKUAANA Executive Council, in conjunction with the local alumni is a great example of how we can come together under our Alumni Association, organize and give back to our local community.
After a delicious dinner we had entertainment from Asad Abbas ’89 and Fida Khan ’97. Thank you to both of them and especially the musicians who came with Fida all the way from Austin for the event.
Mohammad Sarfaraz, ’90 was gracious in taking over the photography and for taking amazing snaps.
Congratulations to the Hurricane Harvey Fund Group and Reunion Organizing Committee (the same group of people helped with both endeavours) for such a great team effort! I can’t really thank you all enough for arranging this, Azam Kundi ’92, Homayon Sidiq ’92, Nooruddin Punjwani ’95, Athar Qureshi ’96, Abbas Jafri ’97, Faisal Cheema ’00, Fyza Piracha ’01 and Sabeen Najam ’02, our Organizing Committee who worked tirelessly and made this event a huge success and the largest regional reunion in the history of AKUAANA.
Hope we can continue our tradition of regional reunions all around the US and build our network stronger.
Habib Chotani
Class of ’95
President, AKUAANA
Dear Alumni,
Congratulations on a very successful AKUAANA Reunion in Orlando, FL on Friday July 7th, 2017. We again hosted one of the largest gathering after Washington, with over 200 participants and graduates from every class from 1988 to 2014. The classes of 1997 and 1992 celebrated their class milestones.
This year our Dean, Dr Farhat Abbas could not attend but did send us a video message.
The General Body Meeting was separated from the Reunion Dinner and was held just prior to the start of the Reunion Dinner. This was done to allow for alumni-only discussions and crucial decision-making. The General Body Meeting was an alumni only session. Current progress of AKUAANA was presented, including the Treasurer’s Report, increase in membership, new selection of Board of Advisor and AKUAANA project(s). Open discussion was held for new projects. Minutes of the General Body Meeting are available on the website.
We were the 4th largest group of alumni present at the APPNA convention and we remain the 4th largest component society at APPNA and the fastest growing in terms of numbers. The leaders of APPNA highlighted our continuing influence on the larger society when they visited with us during dinner. Rehan Khan ’94 and Habib Chotani ’95 received the presidential award for the APPNA National Food Pantry Project.
After a lively dinner, we sang and danced the night away with Rabat Fateh. The classes of 1997 and 1992 hosted their private celebrations on Saturday. The evening banquet was very well attended, highlighted by a great performance by Atif Aslam. Please visit our Facebook Page to view pictures from the reunion, tag yourselves and like the page as well.
The next reunion will be held on July 6th in Dallas , Texas.
We look forward to seeing you there, and remember to buy tickets and book hotel reservations as soon as they become available.
Thank you again!
Our best regards,
Habib Chotani, President
Rehan Khan, Secretary
Amber Syed, Treasurer
Dear AKU Alumni,
We are looking for volunteers across US and Canada who can help coordinate regional reunions for AKU Medical College Alumni.
The role of the coordinators will be to help invite AKU Alumni within an approximate 100-mile radius of the venue. They would also be instrumental in arranging the program details for the event.
To clarify, the coordinators will not be financially responsible to host the events. For example, the arrangement can be made at a restaurant and people can pay for themselves. If any coordinator wants to host any event themselves, they are welcome to do so but there is no obligation to do so.
In 2016, successful mini reunions were arranged in Minnesota, Dallas, Northern Virginia, St. Louis, Atlanta and the New York / New Jersey area. Snaps from these reunions can be viewed on our Facebook Page.
This year, we are looking for volunteers so we can have similar and even more successful events in the US and Canada.
The reason for having these mini reunions is to promote not only social and professional networking, but also to explore the future of our alumni body and collaboration in possible future community and charitable projects (in the US or Pakistan) using the AKUAANA platform.
We hope that you consider becoming a volunteer to expand the number of local reunions. If you would like AKUAANA or its officers to help in anyway, please feel free to reach out to us.
Thank you.
Habib Chotani
President, AKUAANA (2016 – 17)
Dear Alumni,
Congratulations on a very successful AKUAANA Reunion in Washington, DC on Friday August 5th, 2016. We hosted one of the largest gatherings in Washington, with over 180 participants and graduates from every class from 1988 to 2014. The classes of 1996 and 1991 celebrated their class milestones.
The reunion was very well attended by University leaders including Dr. Farhat Abbas (Dean, AKU Medical College), Mr. Zahir Janmohamed (Director General, Resource Development). Professor Zulfiqar Bhutta also attended the meeting. In fact, Dr Bhutta has just received the Pride of Performance by President of Pakistan.
The General Body meeting was separated from the Reunion Dinner and was held just prior to the start of the reunion dinner (minutes available). This was done to allow for alumni-only discussions and crucial decision-making. The General Body meeting was an alumni only session. Current progress of AKUAANA was presented, including Treasurer’s report, approval of constitutional amendment, increase in membership, new selection of Board of Advisor and AKUAANA project(s). Open discussion was held for new projects – APPNA merit lecture series (AKUAANA members to commit for 10 lectures in a year) lead by Rehan Khan ‘94, PGME Conference at AKU for career counselling in October 2016 lead by Junaid Razzaq ’94, volunteer/internship opportunities for AKUAANA members children at AKU Karachi.
We were the 3rd largest alumni present at the APPNA convention and we remain the 4th largest component society at APPNA and the fastest growing in terms of numbers. The leaders of APPNA highlighted our continuing influence on the larger society when they visited with us during dinner. Rehan Khan ’94 received the award from the President of APPNA for his work on getting expedite visa approval for J1 applicants.
After a lively dinner, we sang and danced the night away with Sunidhi Chauhan. The classes of 1996 and 1991 hosted their private celebrations on Saturday the 6th. The evening banquet was very well attended, highlighted by Zikr Khan and his wife, address by Governor Terry Mcauliffe and entertainment by Rahim Shah and Fariha Pervaiz. Please visit our Facebook Page to view pictures from the reunion, tag yourselves and like the page as well.
The next reunion will be held on July 7th in Orlando, Florida.
We look forward to seeing you there, and remember to buy tickets and book hotel reservations as soon as they become available.
Thank you again!
Our best regards,
Habib Chotani, President
Rehan Khan, Secretary
Amber Syed, Treasurer