Humaira Khan

‘I yearned to travel around the world’ 

I was born in Abbottabad, one of the most beautiful cities in Pakistan. My mother’s and father’s families both originally came from northern India but their families moved to Pakistan a number of years after partition. My mother was a lecturer in English literature in the Government Degree College for Women, Abbottabad and spent her entire career there, eventually becoming the college principal. My father was a medical doctor and for much of my childhood, he worked in West Africa. We lived with him there for a time but came back when it became clear that my two siblings and I – all girls, I am the eldest – were not getting the education we needed. So, I grew up largely with my mother, my siblings and Khala (which means ‘Aunt’) who was my mother’s colleague and her adopted sister. Living in an all-female household definitely influenced my life, in that I never experienced undue male dominance in my childhood and subsequently, I have not put up with it in my later life. 

I was very lucky that I attended the same school throughout my childhood. I loved going there. My biggest hobby was reading books, especially on science, history and exotic places. I yearned to travel around the world and was always looking at atlases and maps, pointing out various far-away places. When my father visited us he taught me technical photography and film editing. When I got to be an undergraduate, I did not actually attend college. Instead I decided to do private preparation for what was usually a two-year course after high school, because I wanted to do it in one year. So, I got tutored in physics, mathematics and chemistry by teachers from my former school and did lab work at my mother’s college.  It was a very anxious wait for the results, but when they were announced, I found that I had obtained first position in the entire North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. I do believe that it was my mother and Khala’s encouragement and God’s help that were responsible for this outcome.

‘The academic experience felt very different’ 

I had always known that I wanted to study abroad, so the Rhodes Scholarship was the perfect thing that came along in my life. My time as a Scholar in Oxford was actually very, very good. I felt I had two anchors and sources of support: my college and Rhodes House. That made all the difference to my sense of security. And thanks to the generous financial support from the Rhodes Trust, I did not have to worry about money too much, and I was able to fulfil my childhood desire to see new countries. I travelled throughout the UK and Europe, and the Rhodes Scholarship made that possible for me.  

In the beginning, the academic experience felt very different from what I had been used to in Pakistan. In Oxford, we had the tutorial system and there was very little supervision by academic staff. We were supposed to study on our own. I must admit it was tough in the beginning, and it took me about two months to become accustomed to it, and that was largely because of my excellent and helpful tutors at Somerville who understood my background and helped me adjust to the new system.  

I was also a little homesick at the beginning too, but that didn’t last, and I got very involved, both in my tutorials and in some of Oxford’s mind-boggling number of extracurricular activities. I became friendly with a lot of people from countries all over the world, and that was so exciting for me. Oxford is a wonderfully cosmopolitan environment. While I was there, I also had the honour of meeting the Queen and Prince Philip at Rhodes House for the 80th anniversary of the Rhodes Scholarship. We were encouraged to wear traditional dress, which fortunately I had with me, and we were all trained in how to be presented. That will always stand out in my memory of my Oxford days.  

For me, the Rhodes Scholarship became a platform, a springboard, from where I could start to explore the world even further. I did return to Pakistan, but only after I had experienced the outside world and felt that I had something to give back to the people of the country of my birth. From Oxford, I attended the Bologna campus of Johns Hopkins University for a year and then obtained my PhD at the main Johns Hopkins campus in Maryland, USA. Later I worked as Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Maryland for two years. But after that, I decided to return to Pakistan, and there, my career became a combination of environmental project management and teaching. I worked with the World Wide Fund for Nature in Gilgit-Baltistan, in the extreme north of Pakistan. Simultaneously, I established my own primary school there. At first, I was worried about moving to what I thought of as a remote place, but I came to love the people and the area. In fact, when the very first Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan was being appointed by the government of Pakistan, a number of Gilgit citizens put my name forward for the position but I politely declined since I wanted to stay out of politics. 

After nine years in Gilgit-Baltistan, I joined COMSATS University Islamabad, doing teaching and research in the department of environment and development. I would say that teaching, at both primary school and university level,  has given me more satisfaction and joy than anything else. It might seem odd to some that I’m not interested in acquiring fancy titles in big foreign organisations or universities, but I never wanted that. Today, my motivation is to continue working in developing countries, especially with communities and younger people in the fields of education and the stewardship of natural resources.