Professor Attia Abdel Salam Ashour

Prof. Ashour was born on 13 September 1924 in Dumyat, Egypt.
He obtained his BSc in Mathematics (1944), followed by a DIC (1948), PhD (1948), and a DSc (1967), all from the University of Cairo (UoC), Egypt.

He started his teaching career as a Research Assistant in the Mathematics Department of UoC (1944-1945), and was a post-graduate student at the University of London, UK (1945-1948). He then became Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Assistant Professor and Professor of Applied Mathematics at UoC over the period 1948-1984. He was Head of the Mathematics Department (1959-1960, 1965-1969, 1971-1976, 1980-1984), and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics (1984).

Prof. Ashour was a visiting scientist at the University of London, UK (1954), at the Physics Institute of the University of Bonn, West Germany (1955), at the Institute de Radium of the University de Paris, France (1955-1956), at Exeter University, UK (1962-1963), and in the Physics Department of Ibadan University, Nigeria (1972). He was Director of the Advanced Schools on the Physics of the Earth at the International Centre of Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Trieste, Italy (1977, 1980, 1994), and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Geophysics, Potsdam, German Democratic Republic (GDR) (1969 and 1980, on the invitation of the GDR Academy of Sciences).

He has been President of the Mathematical and Physical Society of Egypt, and the Editor of the Proceedings of the Society. He is a member of the Egyptian Mathematical Society, the Egyptian Academy of Sciences, the Egyptian Geophysical Society, the “Institute d’Egypte,” and the Egyptian Academy of the Arab Language (1990). He has been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) (since 1954), Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (1964), Chairman of the Inter-Divisional Working Group on Internal and External Fields of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (1973-1979), and Vice-President (1971-1975) and then President (1975-1979) of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). He was also Chairman of the IUGG Committee on Geodesy and Geophysics (1974-1983) and remains a member. He was President of the Arab Union of Mathematicians and Physicists (1975-1977), Vice-President of the African Mathematical Union (1976-1986), an Elected Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (1985), Founding Fellow and Vice-President of the African Academy of Sciences (1985), Member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1988-1994), and President of the International Centre of Pure and Applied Mathematics in Nice, France (1992-1996). For some time he was a member of the Advisory Board to the Director General of UNESCO on “Science and the 21st Century”. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the following journals: Africa Mathematica, Arab Journal of Mathematics, and the Journal of Geophysics.

Prof. Ashour’s field of research is “Mixed Boundary Value Problems”, which also has applications in Theoretical Geomagnetism and in Theoretical Physics. He has led an active school of research in these fields and several scientists have obtained their MSc and PhD degrees under his supervision. He has been an external examiner for BSc examinations (Mathematics) and PhD theses (Mathematics and Physics) at several British, Indian and Nigerian universities. He has authored more than 50 scientific papers, and co-authored the books covering the mathematics syllabus of the General Certificate of Education as early as 1958. He has been Chief Editor of four books on geophysics written specially for scientists in developing countries.

He has been awarded the Order of Merit of Arts and Sciences First Grade three times (1966, 1986, 1988), the Order of Merit of the Republic of Egypt Fifth Grade (1954) and Second Grade (1984), Chevalier dans L’Ordre de la Palme Academique, France (1985), the Medal of the African Mathematical Union (1990), and the Chevalier dans L’Ordre National de Merite, France (1995).

Prof. Ashour was elected as a Fellow of the IAS in 2000.