Four early career African scientists selected to meet Nobel Laureates

Four early career African scientists will join 600 outstanding undergraduate, PhD and postdoctoral students from across the globe to attend the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, which is this year dedicated to physics.   The African Academy of Sciences nominated the four to attend the prestigious meeting in Lindau, Germany, from 30 June to 5 July 2019 after a rigorous and multi-stage review process.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings take place every year to provide a forum for the nominees to engage with Nobel Laureates about current developments and future challenges in their field.  As an official partner of the Lindau Foundation, The AAS is invited to nominate young scientists every year.

The four, who are from Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tunisia, will join other early career scientists from 88 countries across the globe to discuss laser physics, dark matter and gravitational waves and have an opportunity to meet the about 42 Nobel Laureates participating including the 2018 laureates in physics, Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou. 
 
The confirmed scientists, their nationalities and their African institutions are:

Hanane Arahmane, Doctor in Physics and Nuclear Instrumentation at the Faculty of Sciences at Mohammed V University, Morocco

Arahmane has a doctorate in physics and nuclear instrumentation at the Faculty of Sciences at Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco. She received her master’s and bachelor’s degrees at the faculty of Sciences from Abdelmalek Essaadi University Tétouan. Her research interests are nuclear instrumentation; nuclear data processing, nuclear measurements techniques, Monte Carlo simulation, signal and image processing, machine and deep learning, and digital signal processing, etc.  She is currently a member of the Divisions of the Computational and Nuclear Physics, Forum on International Physics, the American Physical Society, Women in Nuclear Global, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurements Society and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). She is the first young Moroccan scientist selected to participate in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Rosa Jacob Chilundo, a Ph.D. student in Science and Energy Technology at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique

Chilundo, born in Maputo, Mozambique has a degree in physics from the Pedagogical University of Mozambique. Currently, she is a PhD student in science and energy technology at Eduardo Mondlane University and a researcher in the area of renewable energy, electricity, and magnetism at the Pedagogical University.

Akorede Kalejaiye, a BSc student of Physics at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria

Akorede is a budding researcher with an interest in materials science especially the areas of multifunctional materials, advanced structural ceramics, biomimmetic materials and nanomaterials. He also has interests in data science and philosophy. A member of the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications class of 2018 and MTN Foundation Science and Technology scholarship alumni, he has previously attended programmes like Vision 2020 Nigeria Young Transformers & Innovators programme and ImpactLabs Nigeria (sponsored by Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He serves as the African Ambassador for the Young Scientists Journal, where he helps to create awareness for the science and engineering journal created by and for 12-20 year-olds. He previously served as a student ambassador for International Association of Physics Students (IAPS). 

Sirine Ben Nasr, a PhD student working on Atomic and Plasma Physics at the National Centre for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies, Tunisia
 
Nasr is a young Tunisian scientist fascinated with physics and a PhD student working in the National Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies. Her area of specialisation is atomic and plasma physics. She has a master’s in material physics and applications and has worked on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. In physics, she is interested in quantum mechanics, plasma technologies, atomic physics, tokamak and fusion plasmas and numerical simulations. In addition, she is interested in the calculation of atomics data. Those latter are particularly important for astrophysics and laboratory plasmas, such as spectra of solar, stellar. Her work on fusion plasma is especially important in relation to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.