Mazlan Othman

Mazlan Othman
Mazlan Othman in 2010.
Born	(1951-12-11) 11 December 1951 (age 65) Seremban, Federation of Malaya
Nationality	Malaysian
Fields	Astronomy
Alma mater	University of Otago

Mazlan Binti Othman (born 11 December 1951) is a Malaysian astrophysicist who has served in several roles within her country, as well as Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna from 2010 to 2014.

Born in Seremban, Malaysia, Mazlan attended Kolej Tunku Kurshiah, a Malaysian prominent boarding school in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. Her aptitude for mathematics led to enrolment in a science curriculum. Although her family encouraged her to become a physician MD, she decided to pursue physics instead. She attended the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand on a Colombo plan scholarship, earning a BSc. (Honours) in 1975. She then joined the National University of Malaysia (UKM) as a tutor, but negotiated an extension to her scholarship and returned to Otago, earning her Ph.D. in physics in 1981 - the first woman to do so since the University was founded in 1869.

Dato' Mazlan Othman returned to Malaysia as the country's first astrophysicist, and worked to create a curriculum in astrophysics at the national university, as well as to build public awareness and understanding of astronomy and space issues. She also performed research for a semester at the Kiso Observatory in Japan.

Her interest in public education was rewarded in 1990 when Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, a strong supporter of education and science, placed her in charge of the Planetarium Division of the Prime Minister's Department, overseeing development of Planetarium Negara, Malaysia's national planetarium in Kuala Lumpur. After the planetarium opened in 1993, Mazlan was made Director General of the government's new Space Science Studies Division, where she launched a microsatellite development program. She received a full professorship the following year.

In November 1999, Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, appointed Mazlan as Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in Vienna. At the request of Prime Minister Mahathir, she returned to Malaysia in July 2002 to serve for five years as the founding Director General of Angkasa, the Malaysian National Space Agency, where her work led to the launch of the first Malaysian astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor.