Hana Mahmood, RESPIRE alumni shortlisted for Being Edinburgh award

The nomination below is published to the Being Edinburgh Alumni Award 2025 website.

Hana Mahmood | PhD Global Health, 2022

Hana is a public health expert and researcher specialising in health informatics and mHealth (mobile health) technologies. 

She found her calling in the streets of Rawalpindi, in her native Pakistan, where overcrowded clinics struggle to meet the needs of young mothers and infants. She wasn't raised in a family of doctors, nor did she set out to become a global health leader. But early on in Rawalpindi, Hana saw something that changed everything - a mother cradling her lifeless child outside the clinic, unaware that her son had pneumonia, a disease that was treatable and preventable. That moment became the seed of a lifelong mission.

Years later, as a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh, Hana took that memory with her and transformed it into action. Her PhD research focused on using mobile technology to educate caregivers about not only pneumonia symptoms but also adequate nutrition, especially in hard-to-reach communities. What began as a study turned into a movement; more than 60,000 caregivers across Pakistan have now received life-saving information, right on their mobile phones.

Hana didn’t stop there. Despite having better career opportunities abroad, she still returned to Pakistan. For the last 12 years, she has worked for NeoVentive Solutions, a research organisation that focuses on improving maternal and child health and recently became its Chief of Global Health. 

One of her most ground-breaking contributions was leading fieldwork for Pakistan’s first national psychiatric morbidity survey, which involved months in the field, hundreds of team members, and late-night data checks. The survey gave voice to more than 11,000 households and forced mental health into the spotlight of national policy.

Hana has led over 35 large-scale studies, but more importantly, she has turned research findings into national health policies that impact millions of children.

She’s trained more than 250 researchers, represented Pakistan on global health platforms including WHO and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and received awards for innovations in nutrition and AI diagnostics.

But ask Hana what drives her, and she’ll tell you it’s the child outside that clinic in Rawalpindi, who could have been saved if someone had acted sooner.