Professor Siddharth (Montu) Saxena combines his management position at BMU with the position of Director of the Cambridge Central Asia Forum, Jesus College, University of Cambridge. He holds a number of Professorships, as well as Honorary and Visiting Professorships, and has supervised dozens of Ph.D. dissertations and master and undergraduate projects. In the last five years, Professor Saxena has chaired four major international conferences and numerous panels and delivered more than 70 plenary and keynote addresses at international conferences and government and public forums. He has published 70 peer-reviewed and invited research articles and book chapters in Experimental Physics, as well as in Development Studies.

In his research in the field of experimental physics, Professor Saxena focuses on the science of strongly correlated electrons, superconductivity, and magnetism. He has discovered four new superconductors, including the first ferromagnetic superconductor. He was awarded an International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Young Scientist Medal in 2006.

In his academic work in development studies, Professor Saxena has been actively involved in field-based research in Central Asia for over 20 years with a particular focus on Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan, Bukhara and Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan, Kashgar in China as well some areas of Afghanistan. He was awarded a Medal for Service to Education in Kazakhstan, and Presidential Medals of Honour from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2011.

Professor Saxena graduated from the University of New Orleans (USA) with a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and received Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in Experimental Physics. He has done postdoctoral training at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and University College London (U.K.), as well as a Research Fellowship at Girton College, the University of Cambridge (U.K.).

Leadership Team