Who we are : contributors of this website

Aisha Fatima

Aisha is a student at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and the founder of Al Taqweem. She started this site after noticing how little plain-language health information reached the Muslim families around her, and she has since built it into a working community resource: she decides what topics the site covers, turns CDC and NIH screening guidance into language her neighbors can actually use, recruits the physicians and public health professionals who review the content, and designed and launched the community health survey that now guides which health topics the site takes on next. She intends to study law and public policy. What draws her to that path is what this project keeps showing her: that good information is not enough on its own, that the communities least represented in health data are usually the ones least served by policy, and that changing those outcomes takes advocacy as much as awareness. She also volunteers with public service initiatives across Illinois, and plans to keep doing this work at a larger scale.

Mohammad Masood Athar, MD, MPH

Working as Regional Public Health Emergency Response Coordinator at Illinois Department of Public Health. I am very much interested in Health Education, Promotion and Prevention of Diseases. I strongly believe that health messages can be transmitted to individuals and communities at places of worship, as faith connects many individuals, families, and communities together. Further, places of worship bring people from diverse backgrounds together regularly and therefore is an ideal place to facilitate public engagement and disseminate health promotion-related messages.

Heba Athar, MD, MPH

Dr. Athar has an MD and MPH in health policy and administration, and public health and medical informatics from University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC). She has done a public health fellowship in leadership from a joint program between UIC and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a Clinical Professor at UIC School of Public Health and Adjunct Faculty at University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill, School of Public Health. She serves as a Senior Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. She serves on the CDC Health Equity Council and CDC Evaluation Community of Practice. 

Arsalaan Naseer

My name is Arslaan Naseer. I am from Rockford, Illinois. I am a senior at Augustana College, and I am studying public health and pre-medicine. Being a public health and pre-medicine student, I think health promotion is a very important thing. It can save many lives every year. Some of my hobbies are: spending time with family and friends, playing and watching basketball, riding my bicycle, and going to the Mosque. 

Mohammad Qamar, MBA, MS

Mentor to the students, counsellor and provides technical support., passionate about volunteering and community service by making an impact in society by raising awareness and educate communities about public health. An Indian American tech leader and entrepreneur. Have MS in Computer Science and MBA from a prestigious business school in London, UK. He is a senior leader with a large corporation in Chicago and have worked with many Fortune 100 Companies in various parts of the world during his career.