Dr Faïçal Azaiez, Director of NRF-iThemba LABS, has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) by its Representatives in recognition of his leadership in experimental nuclear-structure physics, management of international research facilities, and promotion of science and education in developing countries.

Dr Azaiez obtained his Master’s in Subatomic Physics and PhD in Nuclear Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France and completed his Dr Habilitation in Nuclear Physics at the University Paris-Sud’s Orsay. He held the position of the director of one of the largest nuclear physics laboratories in Europe, the Institut de Physique Nucléaire (IPN) in Orsay, France.

He currently holds a number of positions besides Director at iThemba LABS, a position he has held since 2016, including an Extraordinary professorship at Stellenbosch University, Honorary Professorships at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand and is also a Research Director CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He has also worked at the Laurence Berkeley Laboratory in California and was a Director at Joliot-Curie Summer School for Nuclear Physics and the chair of the nuclear physics division of the European Physical Society.

He is also a member of the Nuclear Physics European Coordination Committee (NuPECC); the International Scientific Committee of Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia; the Scientific Committee of both GSI facility and the FAIR project (Darmstadt, Germany)  and serves on the International Scientific Advisory Board of Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) in Romania.