Dr. Fatima Khalique is a SyMeCo Postdoctoral Fellow with Lero@UL and is undertaking her fellowship under the supervision of Dr Katie Crowley. She holds a PhD in Software Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Pakistan, an MSc in Computer Science from Uppsala University, Sweden, and a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan. Before joining UL, she served as an Snr. Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Wing Head of the Enabling Technologies Research Centre at the Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, Bahria University. Her research spans AI-driven health informatics, spatio-temporal disease modelling, blockchain-enabled health data exchange, and data interoperability. She has published extensively in international journals, and conferences, and has conducted numerous workshops and training sessions on AI, health analytics, blockchain, and data science. She has led funded AI projects, supervised numerous postgraduate theses, and collaborated internationally with academia, healthcare organisations, and industry.

Fatima’s SyMeCo research project, titled “HEALIX-B: HEALth data Interoperability and eXchange framework with Blockchain”, focuses on building a privacy-preserving, patient-centric framework for secure healthcare data collaboration. The project integrates HL7 FHIR interoperability standards with blockchain-based consent management and federated learning to ensure that sensitive health data remains protected while supporting cross-institutional research and clinical innovation. HEALIX-B empowers patients to control how their health data is accessed and shared, ensuring transparency, trust, and ethical use of medical information across digital health systems.

Project impact – HEALIX-B aims to advance trustworthy and compliant health data ecosystems by combining interoperability, security, and patient empowerment. Through dynamic consent, immutable access records, and decentralized learning, the project aligns with GDPR and international best practices for responsible data governance. Its outcomes will enhance healthcare interoperability, promote ethical data reuse, strengthen patient trust, and support personalized, data-driven care across healthcare networks.

Interdisciplinary aspects: HEALIX-B is an interdisciplinary project integrating software engineering, health informatics, security and privacy, and AI/ML. It combines blockchain architectures, HL7/FHIR standards, GDPR-aligned access controls, and privacy-preserving machine learning to create a secure, scalable, and patient-centric framework for health data exchange.