Professor Ali Helmy Ahmed Moussa

Ali Mousa received his bachelor’s degree (First Class Honors) in mathematics from Ain Shams University in Cairo in 1953, and Ph.D. in mathematical physics from London University in 1958. He was also awarded a D.Sc. degree from Ain Shams University.

Professor Mousa’s academic career span nearly 50 years during which he rose from the status of Lecturer in Applied Mathematics in 1959 to Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1973. Professor Mousa taught theoretical physics at Ain Shams and the American University in Cairo, Kuwait University, and King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He mentored 16 doctoral students and was the Principal Investigator of a joint Ain Shams University and Stanford Research Institute Project on Applications of Modern Sensing Techniques in Egyptology, Principal Investigator in a UNESCO project entitled: Use of Visualization Techniques in Teaching Introductory Physics Courses in Arab Universities and leader of the computer group in a UNESCO project entitled Modernizing Physics and

Mathematics Education in Arab Universities. He was a Professor Emeritus of Physics in the College of Science at Ain Shams University.

Professor Mousa published around 70 papers and several books in physics and participated in numerous local, regional and international conferences and symposia. In addition to his research in physics, he is credited for having realized, since the 1970’s, the importance of computer applications in Arabic language studies. His significant contributions to the computerization of studies into the Arabic language roots have established him as a pioneer in this field. He published 5 books on the subject, in addition to studying Arabic words and consonant-vowel relations in the Holy Quran. His contributions in international meetings included many important studies such as: Entropy of Arabic Language, Compression of Arabic Text Via Arithmetic Coding, Corpus for Modern Standard Arabic: Preliminary Design and Analysis, Computer Applications in Linguistics and A Mathematical Model for the Automatic Prediction of Diacritics in Arabic Language: Algorithm of Model. He had also written several popular articles on the history and philosophy of science in Arabic.

Professor Mousa was the President of the International Association of Arabic Computing, Elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics (U.K.), Member of the Egyptian Arabic Language Academy, Egyptian Academy of Science, Egyptian Mathematical and Physical Society and Egyptian Mathematical Society. His contributions have been recognized by a number of awards, namely the Egyptian Amin Lutfi Award in Physics in 1964, the Egyptian State National Award in Physics in 1974, Egypt’s Presidential Award (First Class) in Sciences in 1976, and Arts and “Scientific Innovation Award” by the National (Ahli) Bank, Egypt in 2000.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.