Prof. Asghar was born on 7 June 1936 in Pakistan. He is married with one child.

He obtained a BSc (1956) and LLB (1960) from the University of Punjab, and a DPhil from Oxford University (1964) (the title of his Doctorate thesis was “Investigation of Nuclear Energy Levels using Photo Neutrons”).

After spending about three years at PINSTECH, Pakistan, Harwell, UK, and Saclay, France, he joined the University of Bordeaux, France as an Associate Professor (1968-1971). He worked as a Physicist at the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble, France (1971-1978), at CCR Euratom, Ispra, Italy (1978-1980), and at CEN, Grenoble, France (1980-1981), and as Professor of Physics at the Houari Boumedeinne University in Algiers, Algeria (1981-1994). He has been at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences at Grenoble, France, since 1994.

Prof. Asghar’s achievements include the planning and installation of experimental set-ups consisting of spectrometers and beam experiments at ILL and the establishment of research programme at the CEA Algiers, Algeria. He is known internationally for his work in the field of nuclear fission and for many years he was involved with and coordinated major research projects on nuclear fission, charged particle spectroscopy and fundamental physics with neutrons at the high-flux nuclear reactor in Grenoble with the participation of several international groups.

As well as supervising the thesis work of about 20 PhD students at the Universities of Bordeaux, Grenoble and Algiers, he has authored more than 184 research papers. His current fields of scientific interest include low energy nuclear physics, new and safer ways of producing nuclear energy and treating nuclear waste from power reactors, and the development of new detection systems for nuclear data.

He finds time to read and compose poetry in English, French and Persian.

Prof. Asghar was elected a Fellow of the IAS in 1998.