Staff Report

LAHORE: Nida Zafar, a PhD Scholar at Punjab University Applied Psychology Department and Lecturer at Lahore Garrison University, has returned Pakistan after successfully completing HEC Pakistan-Norway fellowship under International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP) in University of Bergen, Norway.

Nida, who belongs to Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, is perusing her Ph.D. degree in Applied Psychology under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Rukhsana Kausar at Institute of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore. Her PhD work is on “Psychosocial Factors and Implications of Usage of Social Networking Sites: A Cross Cultural Study”.

She is also serving as lecturer in Lahore Garrison University since January, 2016. She was awarded fellowship by HEC under International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP) in 2017 to pursue research work under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ståle Pallesen, Director, Non- Chemical Addiction Research Group at Department of Psychosocial Sciences, University of Bergen, Norway.

During the visit, she collected her research data from Pakistani immigrants in Norway, Norwegians and international students. In order to give gift cards as incentive to the research participants, University of Bergen, Norway awarded her a supplementary grant of PKR              1, 60,000.  Nida has already submitted three (3) research articles based on her PhD work in International Journals. 

During her stay in Norway, she presented her PhD research work in an International Conferences held in Poland. She has also attended 3 research workshops organized by the University of Bergen, Norway and acquainted herself with latest trends in research and publication. Moreover, she attended 10 seminars related to PhD organized by PsykSTIP, Norway. She got training in statistical software MPlus from Department of Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. She attended and presented research papers in all meetings of her research group.

Her motivating and energetic research attitude inspired academician in her research group and she received invitation from Meltzer Award holder Prof. Dr. Cecilie Schou Andreassen, and Dr Amandeep, for research collaboration on social media addiction. She and her local supervisor Prof. Dr Rukhsana Kausar will have research collaboration with the Norwegian counterparts.

During her stay, she also travelled to other Schengen countries Sweden, Denmark and Poland which built confidence in her and provided her opportunity to think out of the box. Before her visit to Norway, she had published 7 research papers in HEC recognized journals in a very short time period and presented 22 research papers in national and international conferences which shows her keen interest in research.

Moreover, she was second position holder in MPhil and twice received merit scholarship from University of the Punjab, Lahore. She said, “I am immensely grateful to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Rukhsana Kausar for her kind support, encouragement to boost her research abilities and guidance that made her way easy towards achievements. She also expressed her appreciation for her foreign supervisor for his facilitation during her stay in Norway.”

She acknowledged the role of HEC and IRSIP program in her research collaboration. “This collaboration not only facilitated me in meeting my research objectives but also provided an opportunity to interact with international academia and student body,” she remarked.

Currently, Nida Zafar is actively working on her PhD research to submit her dissertation in 2018. Upon return, she has joined Lahore Garrison University as lecturer.