Atish Dabholkar, a theoretical physicist known for research on string theory and quantum black holes, has been appointed the next director of the Italy-based International Centre for Theoretical Physics founded in 1963 by Nobel laureate Abdus Salam of Pakistan.

India-born Dabholkar, 53, will succeed Fernando Quevedo in the role from November, according to an ICTP announcement welcomed by the London-based family of Salam, who passed away in 1996 after a path-breaking career in theoretical physics.

Dabholkar is the second Indian appointed to the post in ICTP history after Katepalli Sreenivasan, who was Quevedo’s predecessor. Dabholkar is currently the head of the High Energy, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics section of ICTP based in Trieste, north-east Italy.

Ahmad Salam, son of Abdus Salam, said: “The four directors since my father have been from developing countries and have been first class physicists in their own right. But more than this the nationality of the director is totally irrelevant”.

“The fact that he is a strong physicist and has empathy and understanding, and background from the developing countries is key. Naturally we are delighted the steering committee has chosen a renowned physicist and someone who knows the ICTP family and system so well”.

“We are delighted to welcome Atish and look forward to working with him on the Spirit of Salam Award and supporting Atish in any way that we can”, Salam added.Dabholkar’s research includes investigations that build on Abdus Salam’s Nobel-winning work on electroweak unification: “Salam’s work was an important milestone leading to the questions I’m working on”, he says.

Winner of the 2006 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for Science and Technology, Dabholkar is a graduate of the IIT, Kanpur, and earned a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, followed by postdoctoral and research positions at Rutgers University, Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology.

Until 2010, he was a professor of theoretical physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University and a Visiting Scientist at CERN. He joined ICTP in 2014 on secondment from Sorbonne Université and the National Center for Scientific Research.