Notes on Contributors
Ummesalmah Abdulbaseer is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine (UICOM). She is passionate about mentorship, medical education, and exploring the intersection of Islam and healthcare. She has had the opportunity to volunteer with many nonprofit organizations and serve the Chicago Muslim community. Currently, she is working on projects to explore healthcare gaps faced by Muslim patients and on how to promote religiously informed care.
Shafiq W. Ahmed has over ten years’ experience supporting healthcare data analytics, infectious disease epidemiology, and managing large-scale health research projects. He is a Senior Management Analyst supporting Health and Human Services and government entities including the Defense Health Agency and Navy Medicine in quantitative and qualitative health research. Additionally, Shafiq volunteers on the National Muslim Task Force on COVID-19, leading the healthcare professionals committee that has provided public health guidance and strategy for the Muslim community. He also volunteers as a guest lecturer on global infectious disease epidemiology at McDaniel College, Budapest. Shafiq holds a MS in Public Health focusing on Microbiology and Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Aminah Beverly (McCloud) Al-Deen is professor emerita of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University, Chicago. In 2006, she founded the United States’ first undergraduate baccalaureate program in Islamic World Studies. She is the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Islamic Law & Culture. Her book publications include: African American Islam, Questions of Faith, Transnational Muslims in America, Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century, Global Muslims in the 21st Century, History of Arab Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots, and Muslim Ethics in the 21st Century.
Dr. Al-Deen is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, host of Critical Talk a Muslim Network TV production, board member of the Inner City Muslim Action Network, Soundvision, Muslim Mental Health, Muslim Arc, Greenwood Policy Institute and the American editor for the Muslim Minorities Series for Brill Publishers.
Miqdad Asaria MD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has extensive experience in both academic and policy-making settings. His research interests focus on the economics of health inequalities and health financing. His policy experience draws on his time working for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India, the Department of Health and Social Care in the UK, and the World Health Organization.
Rania Awaad MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where she is the Director of the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab, Associate Chief of the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences, and Co-Chief of the Diversity and Cultural Mental Health Section. On a community level, she is the Executive Director of the holistic mental health nonprofit
Nazim Ghouri MD, graduated from Edinburgh University and completed his specialist training in Diabetes, Endocrinology, and General Medicine. He completed his research doctorate thesis, titled “The Cardiometabolic Phenotype of UK South Asian Men,” at the University of Glasgow. He was appointed as a consultant in 2015 at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow and an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
He is the joint senior editor of the British Islamic Medical Association Ramadan compendium—comprehensive informative guidance on the management of patients during Ramadan for HCP s covering a range of specialties.
Marium Husain is a hematology/oncology fellow at the Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center. She graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine and completed a residency in Internal Medicine. As the Vice-President of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, she has been working on public health education and creating domestic campaigns for food insecurity, reproductive health, mental health, and climate change. She is a member of the Policy Committee for the National Muslim Task Force on COVID-19.
Moina Hussain is one of the four co-founders and a board member of Worry Free Community where she helped set up the Worry Free Health (WFH) program that now supports over 5,000 families with healthcare coverage options. She specializes in low-income dual eligible elderly immigrant folks ensuring low-cost medication coverage and least deductibles. Along with Affordable Care Act coverage, she helps people with Medicare and disability issues, while assessing their overall physical and mental well-being.
Shaza Khan is the executive director of the Islamic Schools League of America, a nonprofit that supports Islamic schools in by providing professional development, networking, resources, and critical research on Islamic education. Dr. Khan received her PhD in Teaching, Curriculum and Change from the Warner School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters which communicate the values and needs of full-time Islamic schools to the broader public.
Aafreen Mahmood MD MPH, is a fourth-year medical student at UC Davis School of Medicine. Her research interests lie in exploring the mental health needs of immigrant and refugee populations resettling in the USA, as well as Muslim diaspora. Prior to entering the medical field, Aafreen worked in the public health sector to improve access to medical and psychiatric care among underserved patient populations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and intends to combine public health approaches to her clinical practice as a primary care physician.
Fatema Mirza is also one of the four co-founders and executive director of Worry Free Community (WFC) that strives for health equity among immigrant communities. She has a long-standing background in healthcare IT and administration, which she channeled to develop community health infrastructure that allows WFC to establish programs catering to the three aspects of healthcare: cost, quality, and access. Additionally, she ensured WFC’s participation in Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCORI) projects focusing on mosque-communities.
Maham Mirza is a first-year college student, certified in Affordable Care Act enrollment and has been providing health coverage education to needy families for over four years. As a high school student, Maham volunteered at Worry Free Community since its inception by providing outreach in mosque-communities to support the new immigrant health education needs. Maham has a keen insight into community health data and loves to analyze the data gathered from the outreach activities.
Diane Ameena Mitchell has degrees from Duquesne University, Pennsylvania State University, and Purdue University. She has worked as an English and Speech Communication teacher and as a guidance counselor in private and public school settings. Presently, Ms. Mitchell is a doctoral candidate in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her dissertation focuses on the relations between students’ reported beliefs and desires about careers and the connection of those beliefs and desires with their school performance.
Karim Mitha is a Public Health Registrar within the National Health Service in England. He has experience in both academic and public health settings: as an instructor in Public Health at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh and previously at De Montfort University; and at the local and national government levels, in the Department of Health and for public health teams in London boroughs. He works with the Health Protection team in London, providing public health guidance in infectious disease and supports the London-wide COVID-19 response. He is completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Glasgow, exploring the inequalities experienced by ethnic minorities and migrants.
Aasim I. Padela is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of Muslim community health research and Islamic bioethics. He holds an MD from Weill Cornell Medical College, a MSc in Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan, a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a BA in Classical Arabic from the University of Rochester, and has studied Islamic theology and law in seminary and academic settings. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, as well as three books, and has been featured in major news outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, National Public Radio, BBC, and CNN.
Rafaqat Rashid MD, is a traditional Shariʿa scholar, general medical practitioner, and an educator. He is the co-founder of al-Balagh Academy and Director its medical fiqh programs and associated takhassus courses for ʿulamāʾ. He is an active researcher in the field of Islamic bioethics and medical law having obtained his Masters from the University of Manchester and contributing to many peer-reviewed chapters and journal articles on Islamic bioethics and Islamic medical jurisprudence.
Leena Raza is a fourth-year medical student at Oakland University William Beaumont. Her research interests include healthcare disparities and healthcare delivery models in underserved communities. During her collegiate and medical school career, she worked on helping build a novel community mental health center in Chicago and worked with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as a fellow on COVID-19 testing strategy. She completed her undergraduate education at Harvard University. She hopes her clinical experiences as a primary care physician influence her future clinical research questions and life-long patient advocacy.
Urooj Rehman is one of the four co-founders and a board member of Worry Free Community, supporting people with setting up their medical homes, and finding innovative solutions to support the access to care needs of multigenerational families, where every person may fall into a different bucket of health coverage options. She is now providing healthcare coverage consulting across the United States with licenses in all fifty states.
Constance D. Shabazz MD, received her medical degree from Southern IL School of Medicine. She holds a Master of Business Administration and Master of Public Health from St. Xavier University in Chicago. Dr. Shabazz was a Public Service Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she received a Master of Public Administration. She is the CEO and founder of Salaam Community Wellness Center in Chicago. Dr. Shabazz was awarded the inaugural Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.
Mehrunisha Suleiman is Director of Medical Ethics and Law Education at the University of Oxford and is responsible for leading and delivering a range of teaching activities for undergraduate and graduate students. She is a medically trained bioethicist and public health researcher, whose research experience spans healthcare systems analysis to empirical ethics evaluation.
Sana Syed MD, is a neurologist working as a Senior Medical Director, Clinical Lead at Sanofi US. She graduated from King Edward Medical College and has a Masters in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her neurology training in Boston, including sub-specialty training in Demyelinating Disorders and Cognitive Neurology from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, HMS. Dr. Syed is also involved in multiple public health and professional organizations including as the Health Policy and Advocacy Director for American Muslim Health Professionals and is currently also a Chair on the Policy Committee for the National Muslim Task Force on COVID-19.
Anam Tariq MD, is a board-certified nephrologist and internist and epidemiologist. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. As a clinical-researcher and educator, her focus is on nutrition, metabolomics, and cardio-metabolic disease in the kidney-diseased populations. Dr. Tariq is also involved in multiple public health and professional organizations, including as a Board Member of the Islamic Medical Association of North America. She is also a member of the Policy Committee for the National Muslim Task Force on COVID-19.
Osman Umarji PhD MA, holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s and PhD in Educational Psychology from UC Irvine. He has studied Islam at al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. His research interests include the development of human motivation, religious socialization, spirituality, and Islamic legal theory. Dr. Umarji is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Education at UC Irvine. He has previously taught child development, adolescent development, and statistics. His expertise in both psychological and Islamic sciences allows him to conduct empirical research on contemporary issues facing Muslims.
Salman Waqar MD, is an academic general practitioner at the University of Oxford, an Associate Medical Director at East Berkshire Primary Care, and the Clinical Lead for Cancer Inequalities at the Thames Valley Cancer Alliance. He has published on the management of Ramadan and various long-term conditions and has an interest in the role of faith organizations in healthcare. He is also the Vice-President of the British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA) and was one of the founding executive members. He sits on several boards of national organizations in the National Health Service, addressing workforce and population inequalities.
Aisha Zafar has been a certified healthcare counselor at Worry Free Community since 2016 and plays a vital role as an Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment expert by providing daily enrollments all around the Chicagoland area, educating immigrant families about essential health benefits, and filling in necessary gaps with respect to health equity, while ensuring all of the healthcare needs are met for each of the individuals in the families she serves. She is looking forward to celebrating the ten-year anniversary of ACA marketplace enrollments in the fall 2022.