Bonfils Safari

"I am a Full Professor of Physics (Atmospheric and Climate Science) with long experience in teaching, research, students’ supervision and in academic leadership. I have served the National University of Rwanda, the then only public university, from its reopening in December 1994, just after the April 1994 Genocide, until the creation of the University of Rwanda, following the merger of higher learning public institutions in 2013. My activities are essentially focused on the mission of the University of Rwanda, namely teaching, research and community services. I have been teaching at Undergraduate level basic courses of Physics such as Classical Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics and introductory courses of Atmospheric Physics and Dynamic Meteorology. At Master’s level, I have been teaching courses of Advanced Atmospheric Physics and Climate Systems. My research interest focuses on Climate Modelling, Climate Change and Impacts, Atmospheric Dynamics, Air Pollution, Atmospheric Chemistry, Tropospheric and Stratospheric Ozone, Solar Radiation and Renewable Energy. I have played a major role in the creation of a conducive environment for climate science research at the University of Rwanda. Among my contributions, I can mention the establishment of the Centre for Geographic Information and Remote Sensing and the Rwanda Climate Observatory through the collaboration between the former NUR and respectively Georgia Institute of Technology (GeorgiaTech, USA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA). I participated in several curricula reform processes for undergraduate programs and was actively involved in the introduction of the first postgraduate programs in science and technology. More particularly, the establishment of the Master’s program in Atmospheric and Climate Science in 2015, in the Department of Physics, and the Master’s program in Physics at the East Africa Institute of Fundamental Research (EAIFR) in 2018 in collaboration with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Today, some of the students who graduated in these programs are continuing their PhD studies in Physics at the University of Rwanda and some others in other universities in the region, in USA and Europe. I have supervised more than 30 Master's students in Atmospheric and Climate Science and one PhD student in Renewable Energy Technology and three PhDs in Physics in the area of Atmospheric and Climate Science. I have occupied different academic management leadership positions as Head of Physics Department, Dean of the School of Science, Director of Academic Quality, and today I am coordinating postgraduate programs in the School of Science at the College of Science and Technology of the University of Rwanda. At national level, I participate actively as expert in strategic projects and programs related to the development and implementation of national policies on climate change and adaptation. At international level, since 2016, I serve as a Co-Chair of the Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer."