Current Executive
President
Qutaba Karwi
Qutuba Karwi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, where he is employing different experimental approaches to delineate the metabolic perturbations that occur in heart failure. Dr. Karwi undertook his doctoral studies (Ph.D. in Pharmacology) at Cardiff University (Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences), where he also served as a representative of postgraduate students on the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Board for three years. He also gained excellent experience in liaising with national and international organizations during his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. While working very hard to understand the metabolic remodeling in the failing heart as a therapeutic target to improve cardiac function in patients with heart failure, Dr. Karwi is extremely thrilled to be a member of the PDFA executive board at the University of Alberta.
VP Internal
Shahid Ullah
Dr. Shahid Ullah is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Medicine under the Nephrology Division. His current work focuses on cardiovascular issues such as transplant rejection, neoangiogenesis and cell senescence, and is trying to figure out a way to reduce the cases of morbidity and mortality due to transplant rejection. Dr. Ullah completed his Ph.D. in Renal Physiology from the Department of Physiology, at the U of A and his MSc in Physiology, Cell and Developmental Biology from the Department of Biological Sciences at the U of A. Prior to that, he completed his Master's in Public Health from the prestigious James P Grant School of Public Health and his BSc in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering from Bangladesh. Dr. Ullah has been a member of numerous student bodies and committees throughout his student life within the institutions he studied and outside the university for the communities like the food bank, winter cloth drives, blood drives etc.
VP External
Jeffery Zielinski
Jeffery Zielinski began studying mechanical engineering at the U of A in 2005. Driven by selfish concerns of maintaining a stable winter for skiing, he directed his life towards the study of energy production via fusion, undertaking graduate degrees at the Universities of Lorraine, Ghent, Saskatchewan, and Aix-Marseille. He is now practicing as a postdoctoral fellow at the U of A, studying theoretical plasma physics. Having a privileged background (and amassing glorious debt), allowed Jeffery the economic freedom to delve into the genuinely-scientific (critical) political/economic theory provided through historical materialism. Not unlike reading Galileo, this entailed the observation that centering our system of progress around energy (or x) production, rather than favorable (/even reasonable) consumption is incredibly profitable for a ruling minority -- although technological evolution produces profit, humanity must evolve e.g. socially (in our work relationships), as well. Thus, for Jeffery, it is specifically the relationships of owners to profit and workers to work which must change. As such, he is motivated to strive for enhanced worker protections and class consciousness from a bottom-up approach. Jeffery is one with the outdoors, and you would find him studying theory and backcountry skiing out of Revelstoke, if life so allowed.
VP Communications
Lyndsey Hahn
Lyndsey Hahn is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta. She completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Rehabilitation Science within the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta in 2020. Prior to her PhD, she completed a Master of Science degree in Occupational Therapy and a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction from the University of Alberta. Lyndsey is thrilled to be part of the PDFA and to work alongside other postdoc fellows.
VP Operations
Priyanka Mittapelly
Dr. Priyanka Mittapelly is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Alberta in Canada. Her current work focuses on investigating the insecticide susceptibility and tolerance of two flea beetle pests of canola on the Canadian Prairies. Her expertise is in molecular biology, plant-insect interactions and insect rearing and have used molecular tools such as RNA-Seq, metabolomics, mass spectrometry and RNA interference to better understand these interactions.
Dr. Mittapelly was born and raised in India, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and master’s degree in microbiology. She then worked as a visiting research scholar at the Max Planck Institute, Germany. In the USA, she initially worked as a research scholar and later pursued her Ph.D. in entomology at The Ohio State University, where she worked on bed bugs, brown marmorated stink bugs and other agricultural pests.
Besides research, Dr. Mittapelly has been an active participant of Entomological Society of America (ESA) and Entomological Society of Canada (ESC) meetings. She served as a student member-at-large for the ESA, North Central Branch Executive Committee. She also won several student awards for her presentations during the entomology annual and branch meetings. She is currently the president of Association of Indian entomologists in North America and was featured as a standout early career professional in Entomology Today in 2020.
VP Finance
Md Monirujjaman
Md Monirujjaman is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, where his research focuses are to establish the biological efficacy of dietary fatty acids during cancer treatment and understanding underline mechanism of actions. Dr. Monir completed his PhD (Food and Human Nutritional Sciences) from the University of Manitoba (Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences), where he served as a Communication Officer at the Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, Graduate Students Association for three years. He worked as an organizing and planning committee member to organize Functional Foods and Natural Health Products (FFNHP) symposium several times. He also played different roles in a number of student’s organizations in his undergrad university. Dr. Monir is extremely thrilled to be a member of the PDFA executive board at the University of Alberta.
Member-at-Large
Jorge Palacios Moreno
Jorge Palacios Moreno is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta. His current work focuses on synthesizing, analyzing and modelling advanced polymer-based materials and their composites. Dr. Palacios Moreno completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Mechanical Engineering at Concordia University, in Montreal, in 2020. He completed his Master of Science degree in manufacturing systems and a bachelor’s degree in Physics Engineering at Tecnológico de Monterrey from Mexico. Dr. Palacios Moreno is thrilled to be a member of the PDFA executive board at the University of Alberta.
Member-at-Large
Olena Mykhailenko
Olena Mykhailenko is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alberta Center for Sustainable Rural Communities, studying socio-political attitudes in rural Canada through ethnography. Olena earned her PhD in Economics from the Research Institute at the Ministry of Economic Development of Ukraine, where she later served as a government advisor.
As a social scientist, Olena works at the intersection of several fields. She has taught Socio-Cultural Economics and Business Strategies at several universities in Ukraine and piloted interdisciplinary courses as a visiting scholar at FH Potsdam in Germany, Rezekne Tech Academy in Latvia, and Ontario Tech University in Canada. She promotes a transformative digital learning approach by designing and facilitating professional development programs for educators and cultural professionals. Olena has also served as an expert in creative industries for the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. She has initiated various international research and learning partnerships.
Olena is thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to the vibrant intercultural learning community at the University of Alberta as a member of the PDFA executive board.