About Me

In a Nutshell: I’m Yousuf. My background is in philosophy, and my current work brings philosophy and education together. I teach, research, and build educational programmes around questions of how people learn to think well and reason with others. I’m especially interested in critical thinking, epistemology, and democratic education, particularly in how students develop and exercise judgment in classrooms and public life. Outside academic life, I enjoy photography, community building, travelling, and trying new food. Sushi is still my favourite. My main escapes are gaming and building automations for my smart home.

What I Do Now: I am a Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. My intellectual foundations are in philosophy, and much of my current research and institutional work is in education. I teach Critical Thinking, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy of Mathematics. Across these courses, I explore questions about knowledge, evidence, and responsible decision-making. I am interested in how these questions shape learning and the way people respond to complex public issues. My work has three connected parts. I teach philosophy. I research questions at the intersection of philosophy and education. I also work on institutional capacity building, with a focus on strengthening teaching and student leadership in higher education.

What I’m Researching: My main research focuses on critical thinking in undergraduate education. Universities often describe critical thinking as a central goal, but the term can mean different things across programmes, courses, and disciplines. It is not always clear how those aims are translated into curriculum, teaching, assessment, feedback, and student learning. I examine how critical thinking becomes an educational practice. I am interested in how it is understood, how educators design for it, and how students are given opportunities to demonstrate reasoning and judgment within undergraduate learning experiences. This matters because critical thinking may appear in programme outcomes or course descriptions without being clearly built into learning activities, assignments, rubrics, or feedback. My research traces that movement from stated aims to actual practice. The longer-term goal is to develop useful principles for strengthening critical thinking education. I want this work to help educators and institutions think more clearly about what they mean by critical thinking, how they support it, and how they can recognise and assess it responsibly.

Building Teaching Capacity: A major part of my recent work has focused on building teaching capacity in higher education. I initiated and led the development of an In-House Teaching Assistant Training Programme at AKU’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It prepares upper-year students for tutorial leadership, classroom facilitation, and other teaching-support roles. The programme treats TA work as a serious educational role and a form of professional development. Training covers facilitation, active learning, ethical responsibility, role clarity, boundaries, and when to seek faculty support. The model has developed through successive pilots and feedback from students, TAs, and faculty. Experienced TAs have also returned as peer facilitators. I am now working with AKU’s Quality Teaching and Learning team towards a more sustainable and adaptable model, with clearer learning outcomes, reusable resources, and a possible certification pathway. The longer-term aim is a scalable model that can be adapted across courses and academic units.

Previously: Before returning to Pakistan, I spent sixteen years studying and working in Canada. I completed a BA in Philosophy, with a minor in Mathematics, at Concordia University, followed by an MA in Philosophy at Western University. I then pursued doctoral studies in Philosophy at Western for seven years, presenting research at professional conferences and contributing to university teaching and public outreach. For seven and a half years, I worked as a graduate teaching assistant and tutorial leader across a range of philosophy courses. I also served for two and a half years as Vice President Advocacy for the Society of Graduate Students at Western University, representing around 7,000 graduate students across more than sixty departments.