Salwa Nassar (1913 — February 17, 1967) was a Lebanese nuclear physicist and college administrator. She was the first Lebanese woman to earn a PhD in physics.

Early life

Salwa Chukri Nassar was from Dhour-el-Shweir, and attended

Brummana High School Brummana High School (BHS, ar, مدرسة برمانا العالية) is a private school in Lebanon. It is located in the village of Brummana, situated in Metn, Mount Lebanon, east of the capital city Beirut. This school was established in ...

and the American Junior College for Women in Beirut. She was the first woman student in the mathematics program at

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

. She taught for a few years at Birzeit College after graduating, then enrolled in graduate school at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

, where she earned a master's degree in physics in 1940. She completed doctoral studies at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

in 1945, where she was the eighth woman to earn a PhD in physics. She was also the first Lebanese woman to earn a PhD in physics.

Career

Salwa Nassar taught physics and did research at the American University of Beirut. Nassar's academic publications included research articles with titles such as "Cascade Showers and Mesotron-Produced Secondaries in Lead" (1946), but also broader essays on higher education, such as "The Wonders of Creativity" (1962). She was responsible for building the physics department's resources of laboratory equipment, and a founder of the Lebanese Institute for Scientific Research. She was named head of the physics department at AUB in 1965, the same year she became the first Lebanese president of the

Beirut College for Women The Lebanese American University (LAU) ( ar, الجامعة اللبنانية الأميركية) is a secular and private American university located in Lebanon. It is chartered by the board of regents of the University of the State of New Y ...

Personal life

Salwa Nassar died in 1967, from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

, aged 54 years."Salwa Nassar, College Head, Dies After Long Illness"
''Physics Today'' 20(9)(September 1967): 127. The Salwa C. Nassar Foundation for Lebanese Studies was named in her memory.

Early life

Career

Personal life

References

Further reading