Posted on behalf of Linda Nordling.

Romain Murenzi, a physicist and Rwanda’s former science minister, was today named as the new executive director of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. Murenzi will replace Muhamed Hassan, who has spent nearly 30 years in the post.

Murenzi has some big shoes to fill. With Hassan at the helm since 1983, TWAS has raised the profile of scientists working in the developing world. Today it boasts nearly 1,000 members from 90 different countries—many from emerging scientific powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil.

Murenzi started out as an academic, studying mathematics and physics before working on applications of multidimensional continuous wavelet transforms to quantum mechanics, and image and video processing. He spent time in Belgium and France before settling in the United States at the Clark Atlanta University Center for Theoretical Studies of Physical Systems in Georgia throughout most of the 1990s.

In 2001 he was headhunted by Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, to devise policies for harnessing science and technology to solve the country’s myriad problems. Murenzi oversaw investments in Rwandan education and science, with a focus on information and communication technology. (See Africa pursues goal of scientific unity)

Murenzi is expected to take up the post at the TWAS headquarters in Trieste, Italy, around 1 April—although the date has not been finalised. He will join the organisation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, DC, where he has spent the past two years working on science and sustainable development.

Murenzi faces many challenges in his new post, including encouraging more developing country scientists to engage with their governments, and catering to the growing diversity of TWAS members—Indian scientists have different needs today than their colleagues in Botswana. Nurturing young developing country scientists to is also high on the TWAS agenda.

Image: Romain Murenzi