Abdul Jabbar Abdullah

Abdul Jabbar Abdullah
Born	1911 Maysan Province
Residence	USA and Iraq
Nationality	Iraq
Fields	Wave theory, Meteorology
Institutions	University of Baghdad Massachusetts Institute of Technology New York University National Center for Atmospheric Research
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known for	Cloud stratification

Abdul Jabbar Abdullah (1911–1969) was an Iraqi wave theory physicist, dynamical meteorologist, President Emeritus of Baghdad University. Abdullah earned his Sc.D. degree in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946, before being appointed head of the Iraqi Teacher Association, and then chairman of the Department of Physics, College of Education, Baghdad. In 1952, he became a visiting research professor in meteorology at New York University, and in 1965 he joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a scientific visitor.

In his memoir, nuclear physicist Khidir Hamza claims Abdullah not only taught him, but was also instrumental in getting the former into MIT to pursue a master's degree in nuclear engineering after Hamza's initial rejection by the institute. Khidir Hamza later became part of Iraq's nuclear research program, before defecting to the United States and testifying on the program before the Senate.

As a member of the Mandaean religious minority, and a democratic personality, Abdullah was harassed towards the end of his life and arrested after the rise of the Ba'ath party to power in 1963. He was imprisoned for nearly a year but was released and later permitted to travel to the United States. There he held professorial and research posts at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and the State University of New York in Albany. He died in 1969.

Abdul Jabbar Abdullah was born to a Mandaean family in the town of Qal'at Saleh, Maysan Province (formerly Al-Amaarah) in southeastern Iraq in 1911. Upon finishing his secondary school education in Baghdad, he left for Lebanonto pursue university education. There he enrolled at The American University of Beirut where he majored in Physics and graduated with a BS in 1934. later, after AUB, he did his post graduate studies at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he earned his PhD.

Back in Iraq Abdullah, he joint the Physics faculty at The Higher Normal College (later one of the constituent colleges of University of Baghdad), between 1949 and 1958 and became Chairman of the Physics Department.

...
Wikipedia