Ahmadou Wagué

Biographical Summary

Ahmadou Wagué is a Professor of Physics at the Dakar Cheikh Anta Diop University, in Senegal West Africa. He received his Ph.D. in 1981 at the Nuclear Research Institute of Moscow State University Lomonossov, and he got also his Doctoral Thesis "These de Doctorat d’Etat" at the Atomic Physic Centre of the Toulouse Paul Sabatier University in France in 1984. He is fluent in French, Russian and English, in addition to his native language together with two other West African languages.

At Cheikh Anta Diop University, Prof. Wagué for several years was involved in teaching of General Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Optics, Atomic Physics and Laser Spectroscopy. From 1988 to 2002 he was an associated member of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. He created in 1992 the Laboratory "Atomes Lasers", an ICTP affiliated Centre at the Department of Physics of Cheikh Anta Diop University. He was a former Director of the Institute of Applied Nuclear Technology (2003-2015) where he was involved in Nuclear Analytical instrumentation with applications in agriculture medicine, radiation protection and nuclear security.

Prof. Wagué is a member of Senegalese National Academy of Science and Technology (ANSTS) where he is in charge of the Committee on Science Education and Relation with young scholars.

Prof. Wagué is a President and founding member of the African Laser, Atomic Molecular, and Optical Sciences Network (LAM Network). He was appointed as one of the Vice Presidents of International Commission for Optics (ICO) to represent the LAM Network appointed as an International Society member of ICO in 2000. Presently Prof. Wagué is a member of Trieste System on Optical Science and Applications (TSOSA) and he is involved on the definition and determination of optics programs and activities of ICTP Winter Colleges in Optics.

Prof. Wagué is the head of the liaison committee of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in Senegal. From 2005 to 2011 he served as a member of C13 Commission "Physics for Development" of IUPAP and also as Secretary of the C13 commission from 2011 to 2014.

The African Physical Society was launched in January 2010, and Prof. Wagué was elected as Vice President. He is standing presently as a coordinator of the International Steering Committee of the new African Optics and Photonics Society.

He organized a national campaign called "Light to the People" in bringing Solar Lamps into schools in many remote villages without electricity in Senegal. This campaign was extremely useful giving opportunity to many school children and their families to have light and to study during night times. This experience is on the way to be reproduced in other African countries.

Prof. Wagué is a founding member of the African Laser Centre (ALC) launched in Johannesburg in 2003; as a member of the Board of Directors of ALC, he is involved in the process of development of capacity building in laser sciences and applications in Africa and also in the initiative of creating laser facilities in different nodal points in Africa (South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, etc.) with the support of African governmental authorities.

Candidate Statement

Presently Prof. Wagué is a member of the American Physical Society. In the past also he was several times member of APS. In 1997 the APS and LAM Network organized at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris a workshop on how APS can go interact with African physicists to help development of physical sciences in Africa. The workshop was held with the participation of Prof. Wagué and LAM Network coordinator from Ghana, together with Dr. Kennedy Reed and Irwin Lerch from APS. The Paris meeting was followed by a visit at the APS headquarters in Washington with a tour across US in several physics laboratories: at Cornell University, at New Jersey Institute of Technology, at Michigan University, at Lucent lab in Atlanta, at Huntsville AM University in Alabama, and at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. After this visit in the USA, APS, European Physical Society (EPS) and LAM Network organized in Dakar in December 1998 an International Workshop on Spectroscopy and Applications with participants from more than 20 African countries together with participants from USA and Europe. It was the first workshop of this kind in Sub-Saharan African and was organized by Prof. Wagué together with Dr. Kennedy Reed from APS and Annick Suzor-Weiner from EPS, with the support of APS. Prof. Wagué participated in 1999 at the APS Centennial Meeting held in Atlanta together with the IUPAP General Assembly. This event was an occasion to strengthen the relationship of APS with the LAM Network. In collaboration with ICTP, starting from 2009 up to now, APS is providing to the Laboratory "Atomes Lasers" CD ROM’S of all the Physical Reviews published by APS. This donation was very important for the development of many research groups in physics at Dakar University. In collaboration with ICTP, APS has contributed also in organizing visiting scholar program at the Dakar University and University of Cape Coast in Ghana.

APS is playing an important role in the development of Physics worldwide. In Africa promotion of outreach and capacity building in physical sciences programs is of great importance to build a future in science for millions of young scholars, both girls and boys, and APS could be one of the key elements in realizing this future.

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