Introduced by Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt

Science and technology help explain and overcome many of the global challenges the world community faces, whether it is climate change, water and food insecurity, non-communicable diseases such as cancer, zoonotic outbreaks, plastic pollution, and many other pressing issues of our time. The challenge however is that science and technology, though crucial, are unequally distributed and instituted across the world, with those who need them most, having the least access. 

Among the sciences and technologies, nuclear science is unique in the scale and breadth of its application: scientists and engineers have unlocked the power of the atom to fight diseases, to study scarce food and water resources, to develop hardier crops and to monitor pollution in the oceans and on earth.

In this presentation Ms Najat Mokhtar, Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications at the International Atomic Energy Agency will talk about the role of nuclear science to help address today’s global challenges provide insight into the world of the atom and its indispensable role in our lives.

Ms Najat Mokhtar was appointed Deputy Director General and head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications on 1 January 2019. Prior to her appointment, she was Director of the Division for Asia and the Pacific in the Department of Technical Cooperation. 

From 2012 to 2014, Ms Mokhtar was the Section Head of the Nutrition and Health related Environmental Studies, Human Health Division. From 2010 to 2012,  she was the Director of Science and Technology at the Hassan II Academy of Science and Technology in Morocco, where she coordinated the national strategy on Education and Research. She worked as University Professor and Research Director at the University Ibn Tofail in Morocco for more than 20 years. Ms Mokhtar was a Technical Officer at the Agency from 2001 to 2007.

Ms Mokhtar holds a PhD in Nutrition and Endocrinology from Laval University in Canada and has a doctorate in food sciences from the University of Dijon in France. She has done her postdoctoral training as a Fulbright fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America.