Tahir - Dundee tutor





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Information About Tahir:


Personal Description:

Education and Qualifications
PhD Research fellow: The role of genetics and ecology in the evolution and distribution of Brassicaceae annuals.

MRes Crops for the Future (August 2010)
University of Dundee, College of Life Sciences, UK and Scottish Crop Research Institute, UK.

The course focused on the application of basic research to crop improvement in the 21st century. Individual modules covered basic plant biology including gene expression and regulation, molecular genetics and pathology, genetic manipulation as well as environment-plant interactions.

MSc Botany (January 1998): {High First Class}
University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Department of Botany, Pakistan.
This two year MSc course covered all major aspects of plant science, including cell structure and function, general genetics, plant ecology, plant pathology, germplasm resources in plants, biochemistry, advance systematics, and experimental statistics and biometry.

BSc-Zoology, Botany Chemistry, Geography
Bahauddhin Zakariya University Multan, Pakistan.
(August 1995): { High Second Class}

The Degree course covered organic, physical and Inorganic chemistry gave a Comparative account of Vertebrate, Invertebrate Phyla and comprehensively focused on plant physiology, thallophytes, bryophytes, Gymnosperms and angiosperms.



Teaching Experience:

2011- Till present Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

I am generally interested in systematics, molecular ecology and phylogeography of Palearctic species. However, I am specifically inquisitive about the distribution of biodiversity and the assessment of the underlying processes, with a special focus on the biogeography of the Palaearctic region.

April 2008 -2010 MRes Project: The Role of Alternative Splicing in Barley in Response to Cold/Drought Stress. [Gene Expression Group at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Dundee]

My research project confirmed alternative splicing of Rbu-P2 Carboxylase activase {Rca} in barley in response to cold/drought stress.

2002 - 2008 Lecturer in Botany/Biology [Khawaja Fareed Govt. Post Graduate College, Rahimyar Khan, Pakistan.]

1998 - 2002 GCE Advance Level Biology teacher [The City School, Lahore/Vehari Branches, Pakistan.]

As a lecturer, I taught plant physiology, general genetics, morphology of vascular and non vascular plants and plant ecology at undergraduate level and general biology to pre-medical classes. I was a member of the curricula development committee & college developmental council. I was also a member of the college student affairs department. I was in charge of the botanical society and coordinator of the annual inter-collegiate debate committee.

1997 - 1998 MSc Project: Drought Resistance of Wheat Germplasm Collected from some Arid Regions of Baluchistan and Punjab. [University of Agriculture, Faisalabad].
My research project determined that water stress badly affects wheat yield and all yield related parameters but improves the grain protein contents. The most tolerant accession was used for further downstream analysis.



Tutoring Approach:

Teaching Skills

Fluent in English, excellent communication and interpersonal Skills, self-confident and motivating personality.
Excellent at Micro & Macro lesson Planning.
Good exposure to all latest teaching methodologies like; demonstrative, discussion-oriented, presentation style, activity based as well as situation based.
Can conduct student counseling sessions.
Manage faculty members, study plans, guide and training sessions.
Excellent knowledge of physical, Human Economic and World Geography.

Research Skills

I am skilled in a wide variety of laboratory techniques including DNA and RNA extraction from plants, RT-PCR, PCR, gel electrophoresis (acrylamide and agarose), bacterial transformation and transfection, gene cloning , gene sequencing and nanodrop spectrometry. I also have experience in Agrobacterium based transformations and plant tissue culture.
Knowledge of using Gene Alignment & BLAST Tools: Clustal W2, FASTA, NCBI Spidey, TAIR Resources, harvEST Barley, JoinMap, Curly Wurly, and Sequencher.

Confident at using GenStat: Exploring Data & designing Graphs and Plots, Probability & Distributions, Significance Testing & T-Tests, Analysis of Variance, Simple Linear Regression.

Can skillfully use "R" for maps, statistics, populations genetics and phylogenetics ; ArcGIS for maps and spatial analyst Tools.

Good Expertise in data preparation and in conducting analysis for phylogenetics, population genetics, population demography, phylogeography and species distribution Modelling using wide range of Softwares and tools like; Geneious, MEGA, MrBayes, RXML, BEAST, JModelTest, TCS, GenGIS, PopArt, SplitsTree, Arlequin, GenAlex, Popgene, Genepop, STRUCTURE, GENELAND, BAPS, TESS, IM, IMA, DIYABC, MIGRATE-N and Maxent.



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Qualifications:

  • PhD Research Fellow:The role of genetics and ecology in the evolution and distribution of Brassicaceae annuals
  • MRes Crops for the Future (August 2010)
  • MSc Botany (1998)
  • BSc-Zoology, Botany, Geography, Chemistry (1995)

Further Information:

Availability:  Weekends / Weekdays (evenings)
Types of Tutoring:   From their home / Online
References Supplied?   Yes
Current DBS/CRB Check?   Yes
Additional Languages Spoken:   English, Urdu, Punjabi, German