Title: Professor

Prof. Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli is a Moroccan nuclear physicist and professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where she joined in 1982 after completing a PhD in Nuclear Physics at Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. She later headed the Nuclear Physics Laboratory and became a driving force in Morocco’s integration into international research.

Her scientific work spans nuclear physics, medical physics, and high-energy physics. She played a decisive role in Morocco’s participation in the ATLAS experiment at CERN, contributing to the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. She is also engaged in the KM3NeT and ANTARES collaborations.

A pioneer in education, she established Morocco’s first Master’s program in Medical Physics, training radiophysicists who now serve in hospitals across the country. She has supervised more than 20 PhD and 25 Master’s theses and consistently ranks among the world’s top scientists, with an H-index of 120.

Prof. Cherkaoui has held senior leadership roles, including Vice-President for Research, Innovation, and Partnership at Mohammed V University (2013–2017), and has long contributed to Morocco’s research and nuclear institutions. She also co-founded the national competition Ma Thèse en 180 secondes.

Her contributions have been widely recognized. She was the first Moroccan Laureate of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award (2015), and has since received the TWAS Medal (2022), the WiN Global Excellence Award (2023), and was listed in Forbes “50 over 50” for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (2024).

She is a Resident Member of the Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technology and a Fellow of AAS, TWAS, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and OWSD. Currently, she serves as Vice-President of NASAC, Governing Council member of AAS, and sits on strategic advisory boards in Morocco, Europe and Africa.

Through her research, leadership, and advocacy for equity in science, Prof. Cherkaoui has become a leading voice for science in Morocco, Africa, and worldwide.