Dr Habib did her B.Sc. (Botany Hons.) from Miranda House, M.Sc. (Botany) from University of Delhi. She worked with Prof. Seyed E. Hasnain at the National Institute of Immunology and was awarded PhD in 1996. She was awarded the INSA Young scientist medal in 1996 and worked on her INSA grant as a project associate at NII until she joined CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow as a scientist in 1998 where she started working on organelle biology of the malaria parasite. She is now Chief Scientist at CSIR-CDRI and coordinator of the area of infectious diseases.\r\nHer group works on malaria to understand the molecular workings and functions of its relict plastid, genome maintenance, Fe-S cluster biogenesis, and mechanisms of protein translation and ribosome biogenesis employed by Plasmodium organelles. She has also explored human genetic variation and its association with susceptibility to severe P. falciparum malaria in populations residing in malaria endemic and non-endemic regions of India. She is a fellow of all three science academies of India and is a JC Bose National Fellow (2021-).