Ahmed Bawa is professor at the Johannesburg Business School at the University of Johannesburg. Until September 2022 he held the position of Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa (USAf).
Until the end of April 2016, he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Durban University of Technology. Before that, until August 2010, he was a faculty member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Hunter College in the City University of New York until August 2010. During this period, he was also Associate Provost for Curriculum Development at Hunter College. He also taught at the Graduate Centre, City University of New York.
He has served as the Program Officer for Higher Education in Africa with the Ford Foundation and during this time led and coordinated the Foundation’s African Higher Education Initiative.
Ahmed Bawa holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Durham. He has published in the areas of high energy physics, nuclear physics, higher education studies and in science and society.
He is Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa as well as the Academy of Science of South Africa. He is an Affiliated Professor at Tokyo College, University of Tokyo and is Member of Board and Steering Committee of the New University in Exile Consortium.