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CURRICULUM VITAE OF IBR MEMBERS


CV-CITATION
for
PROF. ALEXANDER O. E. ANIMALU
Chairman/CEO, Institute of Basic Research,
4A Limpopo St, F.H.A., Maitama District,
Abuja, Nigeria
Tel/Fax +234-9-413-3759
Residence Phone: +234-9-523-1491


     Professor Alexander Obiefoka Enukora Animalu, Chairman/CEO, Institute of Basic Research (Nigeria Division), is a scientist, researcher, University teacher, administrator and publisher; former Director National Mathematical Centre, Abuja; President of Nigerian Academy of Science; and Winner Nigerian National Merit Award 2000.
     Born on the 28th August 1938, at Oba, Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Professor Alexander Animalu attended the University College, Ibadan from 1959 to 1962 graduating with B.Sc. (Maths) Second Class (Upper division) in June 1962 on top of his class and winning the Faculty of Science Prize for the best performance for two consecutive years. He also won the Crowe’s Prize on Abstract Algebra and Theory of Numbers and the University College Postgraduate Scholarship. It was this College Scholarship that saw him through the University of Cambridge in the U.K. between October, 1962 and December, 1965 when he obtained the M.A. (Cantab) and Ph.D. (Maths) in Theoretical Solid State Physics. The high quality of his Ph.D. thesis was attested to, when the main results were published in the Philosophical Magazine in 1965 and included in W.A. Harrison’s book entitled “Pseudopotentials in the Theory of Metals”. The book contained the model potential tables which were in such high demand by researchers in the field of metal physics and semiconductor electronics that the Ph.D. thesis work became by 1983, a citation classic, having been cited more than 729 times between 1965 and 2001. Professor Animalu is the only African in Physics to have earned such a record of citations, his paper being the best among the best twelve cited papers from the University of Cambridge in fifty years (1930-1980). It is of interest to note that four of these twelve most cited works from Cambridge have subsequently won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
     Between January, 1966 and December, 1967, he was Research Associate in Division of Applied Physics, Stanford University and between January, 1968 and August, 1968, a visiting scientist at the Department of Physics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In September, 1968, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Missouri, Rolla. His research works were in the fields of solid state and elementary particle physics. In 1970, moving through Drexel University in Pennsylvania, as Associate Professor of Physics, a major breakthrough in his career came in April 1972 when he was appointed a research physicist, at the Lincoln Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) working under Professor H.J. Zeiger and Professor J.B. Goodenough on research projects related to development of computer core memory and primarily on the development of the transition-metal model potential, thus extending his Ph.D. thesis area to now include all elements of the Periodic Elements of Chemical Elements. It was within this period that he completed his main line book entitled Intermediate Quantum Theory of Crystalline Solids published by Prentice-Hall of New Jersey in 1977. It became a world-wide classic with an Indian Edition published by Prentice-Hall of India in 1978. It was also translated into Russian by the Russian Academy of Science in 1981, reprinted in USA in 1994 and is currently on the world-wide web.
     His achievements in teaching and research in the UK and USA between 1962-1976 having equipped him intellectually, he was now prepared for challenges he was going to face on return to Nigeria in 1976. Within a year of coming back, he surrendered his green card to the American government in order to better focus his intellect on the development of Nigeria. His return to Nigeria never diminished his productive scholarship and international recognition. His continued contributions to the field of theoretical solid state physics led to his recognition as the only African member till date of the Advisory Board of the Euro-Journal Physica (B). His recent theory of high-temperature superconductivity based on the novelty of the pairing mechanism for electrons published in Hadronic Journal in 1991 led to his recognition as the only African member of the Editorial Board of the USA-based international Hadronic Journal and Hadronic Journal Supplement. He is the founding editor of the Nigerian Journal of Solar Energy and one of the pioneering editors of the Bulletin of the Nigerian Institute of Physics.
     Professor Animalu who was the Foundation President of the Solar Energy Society of Nigeria has trained many Nigerians in the field of theoretical physics and solar energy. 


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