Javaid Laghari

Javaid Laghari (Urdu: جاويد لغارى; TI, IEEE Award, Ph.D.), is a Pakistani electrical engineer and science administrator who is currently serving as the chairperson of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.^[1] He is an academic and an aerospace scientist, Laghari is a staunch supporter of technocracratic democracy in the country. He was previously Senator of Pakistan from the Pakistan Peoples Party. Dr Laghari has been a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, a socialist democratic party. Having started his career as Science Advisor to the Benazir Bhutto during her second and last Prime ministerial term, and has been associated with Bhutto long before becoming Science Advisor to Bhutto. After this post, Benazir Bhutto appointed him as the President of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) and prior to joining SZABIST, he was the Director of Graduate Studies, and Chairman of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the State University of New York at Buffalo where he served as the senior professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering there..

He served as the Senator to the Senate Secretariat in 2006 for a six-year term and resigned in July 2009. During his Senate term, he also officiated as Acting Chairman Senate. He specializes in Energy and Power, Higher Education, Information Technology, Space Power Technology and Leadership and has published over 120 research papers in refereed journals and presented over 70 papers at International Conferences. He is also the author of three books, "Reflections on Benazir Bhutto", "Leaders of Pakistan" and "Creative Leadership". Laghari gained a national and international reputation during the "fake degree" saga of the parliamentarians in Pakistan in summer of 2010, and again during the elections of 2013, when he took a principled stand and had HEC verify the degrees of all parliamentarians. As a result, a large number of parliamentarians were disqualified from the parliament. During the process, he received multiple threats, including to his life, and his younger brother, Farooq Laghari, a bureaucrat, was arrested by the Sindh government. Dr Laghari is now a national hero in Pakistan.

Early life

Laghari was born in Hyderabad. In 1950, he attended the Sindh University where he enrolled in the Department of Electrical Engineering. In 1971, Leghari received his B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering. In 1972, Laghari then traveled to Ankara, Turkey and completed his post graduate studies at the Middle East Technical University and received his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1975. He then traveled to United States and joined University at Buffalo, The State University of New York where he received his Ph.D in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1980.

US research work

Laghari worked in the United States as a researcher at NASA, the Air Force Research Laboratory of AFOSR, the Office of Naval Research, the Naval Research Lab, the Defense Nuclear Agency, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Strategic Defense Initiative, Hughes Aircraft and the Boeing Aerospace Company. He was Chairman of the 1992 IEEE International Conference on High Voltage Engineering and has organized numerous International Conferences and chaired a large number of Sessions and Workshops in the United States.

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

Laghari was the chairman of the Technical Standards Committee on Radiation Effects at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. He led the Pakistani delegation on nuclear safety at the United Nations. He was the representative on the United States Activities Board on Man and Radiation. He attended the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Space Systems and the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Fast Electrical and Optical Diagnostics Laghari was also the Chairman of the National Conference on Emerging Technologies 2004 (NCET2004) held in Pakistan in December 2004.

Public service

Laghari has been a Member of the Ministry of Science and Technology Human Resource Development Committee, the Private Export Software Board, the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology and The Sindh Information Technology Board. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and sites on the Executive Committee of the Asia University Federation and the Executive Committee of the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World.

He is the recipient of the 1994 IEEE Award for Leadership and dedicated Services and the 1999 "Tamgha-e-Imtiaz" award conferred by the President of Pakistan.

Awards

• Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (1999)
• IEEE Award for Leadership and dedicated Services, (1994)

Publications

Bibliography (books)

• Reflections on Benazir Bhutto,‟ SZABIST Publication, ISBN 978-969-8666-13-2, February 2008.
• Leaders of Pakistan, SZABIST Publication, ISBN 978-969-8666-14-9, August 2009.
• Creative Leadership, Paramount Publishing, ISBN 978-969-494-846-1, Sept 2011.
• "Dielectric Films for High Temperature High Voltage Power Electronics", Materials for Electronic Packaging, written by J. R. Laghari and edited by Deborah D. L. Chung, Butterworth Publishers, 1994.

Selected research papers and patents

• Surface Flashover of Spacers in Compressed Gas Insulated Systems,J. R. Laghari and A. H. Qureshi, IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-16, No. 5, 1981,
• A Review of Particle-Contaminated Gas Breakdown, J. R. Laghari and A. H. Qureshi, "IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-16, No. 5, 1981,pp. 388–398.
• Spacer Flashover in Compressed Gases, J. R. Laghari, IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-20, vol. No. 1.
• Testing and Evaluation of Insulating Films: Part I: Description of Test Facilities at the University at Buffalo, J. R. Laghari, IEEE Electrical Insulation, Vol. 2, No.6, 1986.
• Testing and Evaluation of Insulating Films: Part II: Test Results using Facilities at the University at Buffalo, J. R. Laghari, IEEE Electrical Insulation, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1986.
• A Review of ac and Pulse Capacitor Technology, J. R. Laghari, Applied Physics Communications, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1986.
• On the Design of Field-Controlled Multi-Layer Foil Insulation, S. Cygan and J. R. Laghari,IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-22, No. 1, 1987, pp. 107–108.
• Multifactor Stress Aging of Dielectrics", J. R. Laghari, Applied Physics Communications, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1987.
• Repetitive Phenomena in Dielectics M. Treanor, J. R. Laghari and A. K. Hyder, IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-22, No. 4, 1987, pp. 517–522.
• Dependence of Electrical Strength on Thickness, Area and Volume of Polypropylene", S. Cygan and J. R. Laghari, IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. EI-22, No. 6, 1987.

References

External links

Resume of Javed Laghari

• Personal web page of Javed Laghari