Ishrat Hussain Usmani

Who was Ishrat Hussain Usmani?

Ishrat Hussain Usmani, DPhil, NI, best known as Dr. I. H. Usmani, was a Pakistani bureaucrat and an atomic physicist who was the second chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission from 1960 to 1972; as well as the associate director of the Space Research Commission.

During his career, he was also the officiated as the Chairman of the Board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1962 to 1963, and at there played a vital role in country's peaceful development of nuclear technology to acquire the facilities. To his peer, he is remembered as one of chief architect of country's nuclear power expansion and also given co-credited to established country's first nuclear power plant in Karachi in cooperation with Canada, with Abdus Salam.

As a bureaucrat, he lobbied for science and development to became part of national politics and his efforts were also involved sending hundreds of young Pakistan's students abroad to pursue higher education in the field of nuclear technology. Due to his long tenure as chairman of the atomic energy commission, Usmani is colloquially known as father of the "atomic energy commission", a title given to his peers.