Profile
Karim F Hirji is a retired professor of Medical Statistics and Fellow of the Tanzania Academy of Sciences, author of books on media, education, history and religion. He is a socialist dedicated to the liberation of Africa.
Karim was born in 1949 in southern Tanzania. After completing high school, he enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and education at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1968.
Subsequently, he obtained the degree of Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from London School of Economics (1972) and a doctoral degree in Biostatistics from Harvard University (1986).
Apart from a two-year stint as a Planning Officer in rural Tanzania, he has lectured at the University of Dar es Salaam, the National Institute of Transport (Tanzania), and the University of California at Los Angeles. He also taught short courses at the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo in Norway. After an academic career spanning some forty years, in 2012, he retired from his position as Professor of Medical Statistics from the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam. He is a Fellow of the Tanzania Academy of Sciences.
A recognized authority on statistical analysis of small sample discrete data, he authored the only book on the subject, Exact Analysis of Discrete Data (Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2005). He has published many papers in the areas of statistical methodology, applied biomedical research, the history and practice of education in Tanzania, and written numerous essays on varied topics for the mass media and popular magazines related to statistics and its impact on society and other topics. He is a recipient of the Snedecor Prize for Best Publication in Biometry from the American Statistical Association and International Biometrics Society for the year 1989.
Post-retirement, Karim shifted his focus to progressive, interdisciplinary analyses of education, media and religion, with specific focus on Tanzania and Africa. He approaches his work using an evidence-based framework. His books include Statistics in the Media: Learning from Practice (Media Council of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, 2012) and Growing Up With Tanzania: Memories,Musings and Maths (Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Dar es Salaam, 2014). He edited and is the main author of Cheche: Reminiscences of a Radical Magazine (Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Dar es Salaam, 2011). Other books are The Enduring Relevance of Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Daraja Press, Montreal, 2017), The Banana Girls (Zand Press, Nairobi, 2022), The Travails of a Tanzanian Teacher (Daraja Press, Montreal, 2018), Under-Education in Africa: From Colonialism to Neoliberalism (Daraja Press, Montreal, 2019).
Karim's recent books explore religion and its linkage to society and science: Religion, Politics and Society: A Progressive Primer (Daraja Press, Montreal, 2022) and Religion, Eugenics, Science and Mathematics: An Eternal Knot (Daraja Press, Montreal, 2023). The final book in this three-volume series, Religion, Society and the Pandemic, is expected to be published in December 2023.
Apart from statistical and biomedical research, teaching and writing, he has been an activist promoting socialism, enhancing educational quality, improving the veracity of media content, and seeking the liberation of Africa from external dependency.
Blessed with a loving family, he resides with his wife Farida in Dar es Salaam. They have a daughter and two grandchildren.
