Citizenship Pakistan Role Physicist Nationality Pakistani Residence Lahore, Pakistan | Academic advisors Abdus Salam Fields Condensed matter physics Name Abdul Nayyar Academic advisor Abdus Salam | |
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Notable awards 2010 Joseph A. Burton Award Similar People Abdus Salam, Sheldon Lee Glashow, Steven Weinberg | ||
Education What failed us?
Abdul Hameed Nayyar (Urdu: عبدلحمید نیّر) (born 9 January 1945) is a Pakistani physicist and nuclear activist. He specialised in solid state physics and quantum physics, and quantum mechanics. He was a visiting research scientist at the Princeton University and worked on Renewable Energy and Clean Fuel Program at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad. Dr. Nayyar is also a prominent peace activist, strong supporter of non-nuclear proliferation, nuclear disarmament, and peaceful use of nuclear technology.
Contents
- Education What failed us
- Biography
- Education policy
- Peace activism
- Nuclear issues
- Renewable energy
- Articles
- Physics
- Nuclear policy
- Energy issues
- Education
- References
Biography
Dr. Nayyar was born in Hyderabad, India. He received his early and intermediate education in Sukkur and Multan before attending the Karachi University. At University of Karachi, Nayyar received his BSc and MS in Physics from there. Later, he went to United Kingdom to attend Imperial College London, where he obtained his PhD in Theoretical-Condensed matter physics. Upon returning, he took up teaching position at the Physics department at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad in 1973.
Since retiring in 2005, he has been involved in running the Renewable Energy/Clean Fuel program at SDPI. He has also been a visiting Research Scientist at the Princeton University since 1998. He is presently a faculty member at the LUMS.
Education policy
He co-edited the SDPI report "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan”, published in 2003, the report critically examined curriculum guidelines and textbook contents in the mainstream public school system of Pakistan. The report, which was intensely debated on public forums, eventually led to the government exercise to revise school curricula and textbooks (see: Pakistan Studies curriculum). Also from SDPI, he co-authored a critical appraisal of the National Education Policy, published in 2006. He has also researched and written on Madrassa education. For over a year, he served as the Executive Director of Developments in Literacy, an organisation of Pakistani Americans for philanthropic intervention in education to disadvantaged communities in Pakistan. Also for a year in 2010, he served as the Director of the Ali Institute of Education, Lahore.
Peace activism
Dr. Nayyar also takes an active interest in the national and international peace movements. Dr. Nayyar is a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000.
Nuclear issues
Another area that interests him is nuclear disarmament. He holds a visiting position at the Program on Science and Global Security of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, US, where he spends summer months conducting technical studies on issues in nuclear disarmament. He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
Renewable energy
In the area of renewable energy, the energy group at SDPI that he helped establish, has studied the question of marketability of renewable energy technologies with a view to identifying policy measures that could promote their use in Pakistan.