PHOTO COURTESY BY THE MUKHTARS
Karolina and Shahid Mukhtar
Sufia Alam
Managing Editor
[email protected]
Karolina Mukhtar, associate professor in the Department of Biology, and Shahid Mukhtar, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, credit their mutual love of biology to both their first meeting and successful marriage.
In 2011, Karolina and Shahid were selected for a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, at Cologne, Germany, a prestigious institute that screens for 100 applicants, interviews 20 and accepts 10-12. Both were destined to meet the first day of their interviews.
A few days after their first meeting, Karolina and Shahid were able to celebrate, as new friends, their acceptance to the No.1 science research society in the world, according to the Times Higher Ranking Education. After ending up in the same class of a cohort of about 12 people, a few months later, their respective departments required them to collaborate with each other to work on their projects. This instance gave them an opportunity for the two to become even better friends. Karolina was pursuing a project modifying potatoes using genetic tools while Shahid was working on understanding the molecular mechanisms in plants and how they fight off diseases.
“Biology lovers really very often gravitate toward biomedical research just because that seems the natural choice,” Karolina said. “And I think it was fate and our backgrounds that both led us to this field of research.”
According to Karolina, what sometimes people who are not in the science world forget to consider is that plant and animals have the same level of sophistication, they just evolved in two different directions over millions of years.
“A lot of people don’t realize we’re headed toward a global food crisis that’s projected to occur in 2050,” Karolina said. “This is when the population will explode and we will not have enough food to grow to feed all the people who are alive today and yet to be born.”
Both Mukhtars believe that they’re research is vital to the future.
“Someone I respect once told me, a doctor can save your life one day but plants save your life every day,” Karolina said.
A few years later after their first meeting, they decided to make their relationship official through marriage. “The year we were both graduating with our Ph.D.’s, it was a very interesting and busy time in our lives,” Karolina said. “We had to fit in the wedding and two dissertation defenses all within a few weeks period.”
PHOTO COURTESY BY THE MUKHTARS
Karolina and Shahid Mukhtar got married in between dissertation defenses, weeks before graduating with their PhD’s.
According to the Mukhtars, working at UAB has been one of the greatest decisions they have taken as a couple.
“Birmingham is a great place to raise our children,” Shahid said. “UAB is a phenomenal place to work. We love our friends, we love the food, the culture and our colleagues.”
Karolina said that raising children while in academia is harder because of their constant busy lives.
“We’re so proud of our daughters who have put up with our crazy schedules and really being children of biology,” Karolina said.
Being from two different backgrounds, Karolina being from Poland and Shahid being from Pakistan, they have both strived to find a parenting model that fits their life style.
“We both came from very traditional family backgrounds where our dads were the majority breadwinners,” Karolina said. “Because we’re both in academia, we really disregarded the standard gender roles and found a model that fit our needs.”
Now the couple hopes they can be role models to their students both in academia and their marriage, said Karolina.
“It’s great to have an intellectual connection and to have someone really understands,” Karolina said. “We hope our students can look at us and see having a two full time careers and a happy family is possible.”
