REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA, July 28, 2023 - Shela Hirani has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

With more than two decades of excellence in maternal and child health to her credit, Dr. Hirani has earned distinction as an associate professor with the University of Regina. She is a neonatal and child health nursing professional, academician, researcher, lactation consultant and an advocate of baby-friendly initiatives. Her professional goal is to make a difference in the lives of marginalized women and children through her research work, leadership and community services. By aligning her professional work with equity, diversity and inclusion, she has advocated for a positive change in society. She is actively involved in breastfeeding advocacy in diverse care settings and health promotion of vulnerable women and young children who are refugees, immigrants, internally displaced and homeless. Her work relates to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal of improving well-being and reducing mortality rates among young children.

In Canada, she is actively involved in advocating for safe spaces to remove breastfeeding barriers in a variety of public places like airports, shopping malls, restaurants, mothers' workplace settings, child daycare centers, hospitals and post-secondary institutions. She is actively involved in work surrounding the improvement of health equity, health systems, programs and policies that often negatively affect the health and wellbeing of marginalized and vulnerable groups of women and young children, especially those affected by disaster and displacement.

Using her expertise, she is providing quality mentorship to undergraduate and graduate-level trainees, hence preparing the next generation of leaders in academia and research. Since 2004, as a nurse-academician, she has focused her efforts on teaching nursing students while conducting various global health research projects that are funded by reputable organizations. To date, she has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has disseminated her research findings through animated videos, conference presentations, social media and workshops with the stakeholders. Dr Hirani's breastfeeding advocacy movement through her research has developed knowledge, guided future research and improved the well-being of breastfeeding mothers and young children in Canada and beyond. Additionally, she has been an editor and reviewer for peer-reviewed refereed journals since 2012 and is an academic member of the Breastfeeding Committee of Saskatchewan. She is also a valued member of the Infant Feeding in Emergencies Core Group, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, the Asia Regional Network for Early Childhood and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), among several other professional organizations.

Also dedicated to civil advocacy, Dr. Hirani serves as a board member for the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN) and has been a council member for Canada's Development Origins of Health and Diseases (DOHaD) since 2021. She is also the chair of the Council Committee on Research for the University of Regina and lends her expertise as the neonatal and pediatric regional contact person for Pakistan for the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN).

Before joining the University of Regina, Dr. Hirani began her career as a registered nurse of pediatrics and an assistant instructor with Aga Khan University (Pakistan) in 2003, becoming a full instructor in 2006. She continued her career as a senior instructor in 2009 and became an assistant professor there in 2013. Following this time, she served as a graduate research and teaching assistant for the University of Alberta from 2015 until 2019 and was also a sustainability scholar for the university in 2016 during which she advocated for breastfeeding supports for the post-secondary students, faculty members, and staff.

Dr Hirani received various competitive research funding and more than 50 awards/honours recognizing her community services, patient-oriented research making difference in practices, academic pursuits, leadership, and contributions to the health of marginalized and vulnerable women in Canada and beyond. Among her professional accomplishments, Dr. Hirani was honored with a Trudi Szallasi Memorial Scholarship Award from Health-E-Learning: An International Institute of Human Lactation in 2012 and received an Omicron Delta Leadership Education Grant Award from Sigma Theta Tau International: An Honor Society of Nursing the same year. She also secured a Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship Award and an Isobel Secord Graduate Scholarship Award from the University of Alberta in 2015, a DOHaD Travel Award from the International Society of DOHaD in 2013, The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Government of Canada in 2016, Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Award and Dorothy Killam Memorial Prize in 2016, and an Emerging Nurse Researcher Award from Sigma Theta Tau International in 2020.

Added to these, Dr. Hirani was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal from the Government of Saskatchewan in 2023 as well as a Multicultural Leadership Award from the Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan in 2022. She was named 1 of 100 Outstanding Women Nurse And Midwife Leaders From Around The World by Women in Global Health in partnership with the World Health Organization, International Council of Nurses, International Confederation of Midwives, United Nations Population Fund, and Nursing Now in 2021. She was also awarded the Nutrien Women of Distinction Award by the YWCA Regina in 2022 in the category of research, science and technology. In November 2022, she was invited and introduced to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan for promoting multiculturism in Saskatchewan, Canada.

To prepare for her professional journey, Dr. Hirani earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a focus on humanities and science in 2003 and an advanced diploma in early child development and child health in 2009, both from Aga Khan University. Following these achievements, she attained a Master of Science in nursing, pediatrics and child health from the same institution in 2010. She subsequently gained a Doctor of Philosophy in nursing from the University of Alberta in Canada in 2019. Eminently qualified in her field, she is an internationally board-certified lactation consultant with the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners.

Looking to the future, Dr. Hirani intends to continue making a positive difference in society, specifically regarding breastfeeding, as she has seen many mothers struggling in public places. Pursuing a breastfeeding-friendly movement in society, she aims to expand a baby-friendly initiative movement to improve public places to support mothers with young children. For her research projects, her goal is to expand her work outside Canada, investigating the people who are affected by disasters and displacements.

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