Lighting the Way

We are all products of our time, shaped by the events that surround us.
But few of us ever have an opportunity to serve as shining symbols of our time, reflecting through our own life experience larger trends within our societies.
Zohra Ben Lakhdar, director of the Laboratory of Atomic-Molecular Spectroscopy and Applications at the University of Tunis and ICTP Associate (2001-present), is one such person.
Raised in Tunisia in the early 1950s, at a time when efforts to educate women were considered misguided, she has methodically navigated the obstacles she faced as a woman from a poor country in North Africa to gain international recognition in the field of laser physics.
Last year, Ben Lakhdar, in recognition of her pioneering life-long contributions, was awarded the l'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science for furthering the "development of optics and photonics as a scientific discipline in Tunisia and all of Africa," and "making a number of contributions to optical science and its applications."
"When I was young," says Ben Lakhdar, who has visited ICTP at least once a year for the past 10 years both to attend the Centre's laser workshops and, more recently, to conduct research as an ICTP Associate, "everyone around me said that science was for men. They assumed the role of women was to take care of the family."
Even at a young age, Ben Lakhdar was determined to prove this prevailing attitude wrong. In 1956, before she reached the age of 13, she became only one of two girls to graduate from a primary school in the nearby town of Jemmal.
Her education would have likely ended there---the nearest secondary school, after all, was located in the town of Sousse, more than 20 kilometres away. But following Tunisia's independence from France in 1956, her parents decided to move to the capital city of Tunis, where she enrolled in a secondary school concentrating on French and Arabic studies. "Science, my first love," Lakhdar explains, "was barely a part of the curriculum."
Tunisia's new constitution provided equal rights to women and Ben Lakhdar took advantage of this welcomed reform measure to enrol in Sadiki College in 1962, a men's school that was strong in physics and mathematics but weak in efforts to provide gender balance. She would be awarded her degree in 1963.
Next stop along her long road to academic success came at Tunis University, then just a three-year-old institution, where she received a fellowship to study in the faculty of science. At the time, of the 200 students enrolled in the science faculty, only five were women.
In 1967, her good grades led to another step in her career development when Ben Lakhdar was selected to attend the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI) to earn a diploma d'études approfondies. The university, Ben Lakhdar recalls, was home to an atomic spectroscopy laboratory, which helped to "open a new world of science for me---a world of atoms and stars and cells." It was also a world where she came in contact with world-class scientists, including Nobel Laureates Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and Alfred Kastler.
She would be awarded her advanced degree at Paris VI in 1978, successfully completing a dissertation on the use of spectral analysis for determining how different atoms interact with one another.
Despite being offered an opportunity to remain in Paris, Ben Lakhdar decided to return to Tunis University so that she could help to provide students in her own country with the same opportunities that she had enjoyed in France.
The task would not be easy. Computers had to be acquired, software purchased, and administrators convinced that not only was her research worth doing but that a woman was capable of doing it. Because expensive laboratory equipment was beyond the university's budget, Ben Lakhdar turned to theoretical studies, exploring advanced spectroscopic methods for examining the interaction of atoms and molecules. Her specific research interest lied in applying this knowledge to the detection of air- and water-borne pollutants. It would take her 10 years to publish her first paper.
"ICTP has proven instrumental in helping me continue my career," she says. "My visits to Trieste have allowed me to keep current in the field and to exchange ideas with colleagues around the world. I am particularly grateful to Gallieno Denardo. His efforts, through the Office of External Activities (OEA), have not only boosted my research but have given me an opportunity to develop contacts with scientists across Africa via OEA's Laser, Atomic and Molecular (LAM) network."
"People often think that personal willpower and determination have allowed me to succeed. But having help from friends, like those at ICTP, has made a big difference. The truth is that I couldn't have done it without them."

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