Sohiba Muhammad is currently in her third year of BSc in Biology with a minor in Anthropology (2020-2021). She is excited to be completing her honours in the Gunawardena Lab for the fall of 2021. Sohiba has always had an interest towards botany from a very young age. Alongside her curiosity to learn more, her passion for research has stemmed from first year of university when she was a participant in a research study. Upon researching for an honour’s supervisor, The Gunawardena lab and their focus on programmed cell death in lace plants caught her interest from the very beginning. Sohiba began volunteering with the lab and shortly after started working on her honours project after being awarded the Sarah Lawson Research Scholarship (Summer 2021).

She will be working alongside Sophie Tattrie, a master student, and the supervision of Dr. Gunawardena to collect and analyze microscopy data to aid in developing computational models of lace plant morphology. She will accomplish this by analyzing vein pattern, perforation formation, cell layers, and area of perforations in window and mature areoles.

Sohiba has a strong passion for volunteering and getting involved in her community. She is currently the president of the Dalhousie Bladder Cancer Awareness Society and the Dalhousie VIDA society, recruiting students to travel to Central America for a volunteer service trip with VIDA volunteer. Sohiba has also been a proud volunteer of the Ronald McDonald House for several years and hopes to continue for a long time. She is also working a part time job at 811 spending her time booking COVID-19 vaccines for the Nova Scotia community. Sohiba’s goal is to attend medical school and eventually become her career goal as a family doctor.