Pervez Hoodbhoy

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, public intellectual, and education reform advocate. An MIT alumnus with undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, an M.S. in solid‑state physics, and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, he taught for decades at Quaid‑e‑Azam University and later served as Distinguished Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Forman Christian College University; he has also held visiting appointments at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Maryland. Hoodbhoy is the author of Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (Zed Books, 1991), a landmark critique of the relationship between scientific inquiry and religious orthodoxy in Muslim societies, and Pakistan: Origins, Identity and Future (Routledge, 2023), a wide‑ranging history and analysis of the Pakistani state and society. Internationally recognised for promoting scientific literacy and public reason, he received the Abdus Salam Prize (1984), UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science (2003), and the American Physical Society’s Joseph A. Burton Forum Award (2010). In 2011, Foreign Policy named him among the ‘Top 100 Global Thinkers.’ He later served on the UN Secretary‑General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament (2013–2017) and is a sponsor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Beyond academia, Hoodbhoy founded Mashal Books, a leading Urdu translation initiative for modern thought and human rights, and helped establish The Black Hole, a community space in Islamabad for science, art, and culture.