Nidhal Guessoum
Professor PhD in Astrophysics, University of California at San Diego, USA
Nidhal Guessoum is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Besides Astrophysics, he has made notable contributions in Science & Islam/Religion, Education, and the public understanding of science. He has published several well-received books and hundreds of articles in English, Arabic, and French.
In December 2020, Prof. Guessoum was named among the Top 100 most influential leaders in space exploration by the digital platform Richtopia. In 2018, he was ranked 22nd among top Arab thought leaders by the Swiss Gottlieb Duttweiler think-tank. He has chaired international task forces on science and education in the Muslim world, and has served on the board of trustees of the John Templeton Foundation and other organizations. In 2022, he was named the Sheikha Nama Majid Al Qassimi Endowed Chair in Education Across Disciplines at the American University of Sharjah, UAE.
He has lectured at many renowned universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Cornell, Wisconsin, Malaya, NYU Abu Dhabi, and others worldwide), been interviewed in many media, including the Al-Jazeera, BBC, Fox News, France 24, Le Monde, NPR, Sky News Arabia, and The Times. He has a very strong public activity, including hundreds of newspaper articles, 130,000 followers on Twitter, 130,000 on Facebook, and over 450,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.