Ayesha Afzal

PhD Student / Researcher at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg

Ayesha Afzal grew up in Lahore, Pakistan in a family who loved education and the possibilities it can bring you in life. In her childhood, she wanted to solve any kind of puzzle she could get her hands on and would aspire to be an engineer despite societal pressure against it. She greatly appreciates her late father, a mathematician who inspired her independent thinking which she carries with her throughout her career.

Electrical Engineering

Ayesha wanted to receive the best engineering degree available in Pakistan and applied to the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, where she was offered and accepted a place as an electrical engineering undergraduate. She soon became involved in research in various areas such as analog and digital circuits, microcontroller technology, and electromagnetic theory. After finishing her studies she began teaching tutorial courses to Electrical Engineering students and found much enjoyment from conveying complex concepts to students. Helping them grasp new concepts was a very rewarding experience.

Shifting to Computer Science

Ayesha never felt she would enter computer science, it hadn’t been something she was very interested in previously. However, she loved to combine her varying interests and a Master’s degree in computational engineering provided this opportunity. She moved her life across the world and pursued this MSc at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. It allowed her to take a wide range of courses in mathematics and computer science, and also join a community of passionate programmers and computer scientists. She learned the fundamentals of software engineering from the ground up and pivoted her focus toward the field.

Her PhD research has now allowed her to combine many aspects of her previous experience. Her background in mathematics has been very useful in computer science. She has also developed a clear picture of the types of problems she enjoyed solving and the development opportunities she would like to pursue in the future. She continues to learn every day and finds this very exciting.

“My career is still young, I have a lot of research to do and programs to code. But it’s something I really want to do.”

Unique Perspective

Ayesha realises that her background is unusual but has been fortunate enough to have never felt discouraged in the field. Her unique perspective has allowed her to take nonconventional approaches to particular research topics and in some cases these are ways that have never been attempted before. This is something that has naturally stemmed from her interdisciplinary nature.

She recommends students have an open mind to multi-dimensionality in their career. She has spent some time where her strengths lie but will shift quickly if something new is driving her. For her, it is the deep understanding of different topics which makes life so interesting. When she doesn’t know something, she realises it could be an opportunity to make a change and chase something new. At any moment, a new interest may be lying right around the corner. 

Achievements in the Field of Computer Science

Ayesha’s journey as a researcher in the computer science field came along with the rewards as well. She won the First Place PhD Forum Award 2021 at the ISC high-performance event. The award included the cash prize of 600 Euros to recognize the most outstanding PhD research work and is sponsored by Springer. She became a finalist for the Data Scientist Award and Young Female STEM Pioneer Award at Diversity in Tech Awards 2021, sponsored by AWS. Recently, Ayesha was named in 100 Future Leaders Role Model List 2022 supported by Yahoo Finance.