Grants
2025
Google Academic Research Award
Google
PI · $100,000 · 2025
This work will develop the first culturally tailored scam prevention framework for Afghan refugee communities through our established Community Tech Worker (CTW) program. We will conduct interviews with scam survivors, co-design educational materials in Dari/Pashto, and create a four-week training curriculum to build collective digital resilience against online fraud.
Impact Accelerator Grant
Center for Global Health Equity, University of Michigan
PI · $97,056 · 09/2025 – 08/2027
This work will co-design and pilot a digital first aid kit to help victims of technology facilitated gender based violence (TFGBV) at colleges in Pakistan.
2024
Seed Grant
Center for Global Health Equity, University of Michigan
PI · $35,000 · 02/2024 – 02/2025
This work will measure the prevalence of, and exposure to, gender based violence in digital spaces among university students in Pakistan. The prevalence data is needed for policy making, and uncovering the types and instances will provide design recommendations for technology companies to curtail such abuse.
2021
NSF SCC-IRG Track 2: Community Digital Capacity
National Science Foundation
Co-PI · $1,419,769 · 08/2021 – 07/2023
This work proposes an equitable model designed to build community digital capacity. Inspired by the transformative community health worker (CHW) model, this work proposes a community-driven, “train the trainer” model that promotes digital literacy in communities.
Super Abbu Pashto Expansion
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
PI · $272,138 · 08/2021 – 07/2023
The primary outcomes of this project are: (1) Create a Pashto-language mirror service for Super Abbu – a speech based health service that connects expectant fathers to doctors, and to each other. (2) Expansion of the services offered by Super Abbu to answer post-natal (specifically immunization) questions comprehensively. (3) Advertising Super Abbu Pashto service on a separately designed speech-based social network called “Baang”.
mHealth Toolkit for Screening & Empowering Lives of Youth (mSELY)
National Institutes of Health (NIH) R21/R33
Co-I · $391,656 · 08/2021 – 07/2023
This two-phase R21/R33 study seeks to respond to the growing burden of adolescent mental, neurological, and substance (MNS) disorders in LMIC by testing usability, feasibility and effectiveness of an mHealth intervention to promote adolescent mental health in Kenya.
2020
How Do You Stay Sane? Creating Spaces for Refugee Mental Health
M-Cubed, University of Michigan
PI · $15,000 · 01/2020 – 12/2020
The aim of the project is to understand how refugee populations stay sane and look for help to foster their and their families’ mental health, how they balance tension between maintaining their cultural or traditional ways of managing their mental health and western medicine approaches, and how they use technology in finding or applying workarounds to maintain their mental health.
2019
Grand Challenges Exploration Round 22: Vaccinator Supervisor Dashboard
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
PI · $100,000 · 05/2019 – 11/2020
The goal of this project is to analyze incoming immunization data, and synthesize it on an android application for vaccinator supervisors. The project involved conducting contextual inquiry interviews with vaccinator supervisors in Punjab, Pakistan, co-designing the user interface, and deploying an android app for a brief pilot.
2018
Super Abbu Randomized Control Trial
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Co-PI · $250,000 · 08/2018 – 07/2020
The goal of this project is to conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) in Punjab, Pakistan to evaluate the impact of a speech based maternal and child health (MNCH) platform called Super Abbu. The RCT involved recruiting 1600 households, performing baseline and endline surveys, and conducting a 10-month pilot with 1 control and 2 treatment arms.
Cross-Country Maternal Health Information Study
National Academies Keck Future Initiative
Co-PI · $500,000 · 08/2018 – 09/2021
The goal of this project is to understand the information needs of low-income, pregnant women in Cape Town (South Africa), Detroit (USA), and Lahore (Pakistan), and to design and pilot digital technologies that can improve information delivery to this audience, with the aim to discover generalizable findings from this cross-country research study.
Grand Challenges Exploration Round 21: Immunization Anomaly Detection
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
PI · $100,000 · 11/2018 – 04/2020
The goal of this project is to create an anomaly detection system for immunization data being digitally reported in Punjab. The project collected ground truth data through surveys, designed and tested the algorithm, and piloted it with the eVaccs app in Punjab, Pakistan.
Water Quality Sensors for Community Filtration Plants
Pakistan-US Science and Technology Cooperation Program (NAS & USAID)
PI · $234,628 · 09/2018 – 08/2020
The goal of this study is to design water quality sensors and dispensing units that can be attached to community-run Water Filtration Plants funded by the Government of Punjab. The grant funded research on sensor design, user-interface and experience design, and business model generation.
2016
Super Abbu: Speech-based Health Platform for Fathers
UNICEF Innovation Fund
Co-PI · $100,000 · 11/2016 – 11/2017
The goal of this project is to design a speech-based platform that allows low-literate, low-income men communicate to doctors and exchange experiences among them around Maternal and Child Health (MNCH). The grant funded the design, testing and deployment of this service, alongside scalability solutions.
International Development Design Summit (IDDS) Pakistan
IDIN Summit Grant, MIT D-Lab
PI · $30,000 · 2016
This grant supported organizing an International Development Design Summit (IDDS) in Lahore, Pakistan where 40 participants and organizers from 15 different countries took part in creating 6 different Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the sectors of health, education, agriculture and income generation.
2015
Har Zindagi: Immunization Information System
District Delivery Challenge Fund, DFID
PI · UK £250,000 · 06/2015 – 02/2017
This grant supported the design, development, and deployment of an Immunization Information System (IIS) that allowed for digital record creation of routine vaccinations in the field, and reminder notification to parents through SMS and robocalls. The 7-month pilot was deployed in two districts of Punjab with 17,000 children vaccinated by 50 state-appointed vaccinators. The government is now scaling up the intervention to the entire province, with 4 million children being immunized every year.