Prof. Asad A. Abidi, Distinguished Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) will be the inaugural holder of the Abdus Salam Chair at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
An inspiring teacher of the sciences and engineering, Prof. Abidi is renowned the world over for his ground breaking developments in single-chip radios. Electronic devices and circuits attributed to his research form the basis of many of today’s mobile devices.
Prof. Abidi is the recipient of the IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid State Circuits (2008), the highest award in his field. He is an elected Fellow of the US National Academy of Engineering and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). TWAS was founded in 1983 by Professor Abdus Salam. Professor Abidi has been a Fellow of the IEEE since 1996 and in 2015 The University of California, Berkeley, recognised him as a distinguished alumnus for his contributions to the theory and practice of analog and RF circuits.
The Abdus Salam Chair was endowed to honor Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate in Physics, and reflects LUMS’s commitment to the uplift of science and mathematics in Pakistan and the region. Salam’s mathematical genius combined with his impassioned global activism for the cause of education and science in the developing world gives impetus to LUMS’s goal of attaining excellence in education and research in the service of development and economic emancipation.
Professor Abidi’s appointment as the inaugural Holder of the Abdus Salam Chair promises new opportunities to enrich the scholarly life at LUMS as well as Pakistani academia at large. With Professor Abidi’s involvement, LUMS hopes to foster new avenues for research in the areas of physics, engineering and mathematics, and to inspire the community of teachers and faculty members responsible for developing scientific curiosity and engineering talent in the nation’s bright young minds.