Ishrat Hussain Usmani - Life and Education

Life and Education

Usmani was born into a respected, cultural, upper middle class, and an educated family of Delhi and Aligarh. After his school education in Aligarh he joined his maternal uncle Dr Khwaja Abdul Hamied, the founder of CIPLA and a pioneer of pharmaceutical industry in India, and joined the St Xavier's College Bombay from where he obtained in 1936, his B.S. (with honors) in Physics and later obtained M.Sc. in Physics from Bombay University. In 1937, the Ishrat Usmani proceeded to the Imperial College, University of London, for research in atomic physics with the Nobel Laureate Professor P.M.S. Blackett, and he produced a thesis entitled "A study of the growth of compound crystals by electron diffraction" in 1939. He completed his doctorate in Atomic Physics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, after writing a brief thesis on Electron diffraction, prior to start of World War II. He thereafter successfully appeared in the Indian Civil Service Examination (ICS)and became the first ever entrant to that service with a PhD. On Partition of the undivided India into post independent India and Pakistan he opted to serve in Pakistan and served the Government of Punjab.

In 1950, while at London, he was personally invited and delegated by American nuclear physicists dr. Alvin M. Weinberg, dr. Robert Charpi, Karl Z. Morgan— the scientists who had worked in Manhattan Project— to the United States where he carried out his research in nuclear power and reactor technology at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory whereas he served as a director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.