Naeem Ahmad Khan

Naeem Ahmad Khan (12 April 1928 – 29 September 2013) was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a professor of physics. He enrolled at the University of Delhi and attended St. Stephen's College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with honors in mathematics in 1946. Khan then joined the Indian Meteorological Department (Indian Met Office), transferring to the Pakistan Meteorological Department after the 1947 Independence of Pakistan.

Khan left the Pakistan Meteorological Department in 1948 to attend Sindh University in Hyderabad, where he received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in mathematics in 1950. He joined the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) the following year, was commissioned as a lieutenant, and was a senior instructor in Air Force education units. Becoming interested in physics, Khan transferred to the Air Force Reserve to attend the physics program at Karachi University in 1953. He attended the University of Manchester and received a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in nuclear physics in 1958. In 1959, he became a fellow of the Physical Society of London. The Nuclear Physics Division made fundamental calculations on neutron scattering through the gas centrifuge process before it was disbanded by 1969.

Khan was posted to the PAEC's administration in 1970, and was its director of training and international affairs before becoming secretary. Khan was appointed director of the Research Technological Department in 1975, directing the Nuclear Physics Division before becoming director of the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pakistan's national laboratory) in 1977.

Academic and government work Khan became chairman of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) in 1984, where he remained until he became technical adviser to the Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) in 1989. Khan died in Islamabad on 29 September 2013, and is buried there. In 1989, Khan and his team conducted uranium-238 research.