Dr. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is professor of nuclear and high energy physics, and teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees, all from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. He is a recipient of the Baker Award for Electronics and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics. In 2010, Dr. Hoodbhoy received the Joseph A. Burton Award from the American Physical Society and the Jean Meyer Award from Tufts University. In 2011, he was included in the list of 100 most influential global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine.
Over a period of 25 years, Dr. Hoodbhoy created and anchored a series of television programs that dissected the problems of Pakistan’s education system, and two other series that aimed at bringing scientific concepts to ordinary members of the public. He is the author of “Islam and Science – Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality”, now in 8 languages. As the head of Mashal Books in Lahore, he leads a major translation effort to produce books in Urdu that promote modern thought, human rights, and emancipation of women. In 2003 he was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science. Also in 2003, Dr. Hoodbhoy was invited to the Pugwash Council. He is a sponsor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and a member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.