Her math hump led her on the paths of research. Big Bang, Higgs boson and CERN collider…, so many themes that have guided his research. She is now one of the 200 most influential scientists in the world.
Success and fame did not go to his head. Rajaa Cherkaoui ElMoursli remains, as she has always been, a simple woman. She modestly recounts her career as a researcher, scientist and woman. A brilliant career that has earned her various distinctions and recognitions in Morocco and internationally, and through which this “Cherkaouia”, originally from Bejaâd and a native of Salé, proves that with “perseverance, courage and long-term work breath” everything is possible.
For Rajaa Cherkaoui, a teacher and researcher in nuclear physics at Mohammed V University in Rabat, “life has been a series of happy accidents”. Already in primary school, she discovered the hump of mathematics without really liking it and without having, unlike her little classmates, an idea of what she would like to become. She went to school thinking that, like her paternal aunt, she would be given in marriage at 14, once the certificate was in her pocket!
Always top of the class…
But his fate was quite different. Very gifted in mathematics, she continues, with three other young girls, her schooling at the Lalla Aicha high school in Rabat in a special class which will close during the year for lack of sufficient staff. They are then transferred to the Lycée Descartes to do their final year. “And that’s where the trigger and the orientation towards the maths-physics sector took place, thanks to the support of two exceptional teachers, Mr. Azéma and Mr. Saut, who were my mentors”, remembers Rajaa . Once she got her baccalaureate, she still had no precise idea of which course to choose, she just wanted to follow it in France. Conservative, his father refused the choice of studies abroad and it took the intervention of members of the maternal family to change his mind.
“Suddenly, he accompanied me to Grenoble where I almost did (laughs) architecture studies, except for the guidance counselor who, on examining my file, clearly told me meant that I had nothing to do in this sector. She therefore strongly suggested that I go to the Faculty of Science”, says Rajaa who admits having entered this sector by chance and without knowing that one day it would lead her to this long course of cutting-edge research.
Mathematics, she succeeded with flying colors, but without passion. Physics, on the other hand, “because it is more complicated”, aroused all his interest. “It was a challenge for me. And I worked hard, because my father told me if you miss your first year, you go back to Morocco!”. Hard work that earned her, in her entourage, the nickname of “kerrada”, the hard worker.
Hardworking and resourceful, she became, to the great surprise of her parent, independent. “My father often came to see me and he was totally conquered by my development. This played in favor of my younger sister who was also authorized to continue her studies in France”.
Back home
It was at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble that Professor El Moursli obtained his master’s degree in research, his DEA and finally a doctorate in physical sciences before returning to Morocco in the early 1980s. Unlike several of his comrades who have joined the great French schools, Rajaa Cherkaoui, following vacations at Polytechnique, accepts a teaching-researcher position at the University Mohammed V in Rabat.
She will also return to give birth to her eldest daughter in Salé. “My friends were talking to me regarding giving birth there for papers, nationality, etc. And me, I had only one desire: for my baby to come into the world in Morocco, to be surrounded by the family and to celebrate the birth traditionally”.
Rajaa Cherkaoui was quickly given responsibility for the nuclear physics laboratory at the Faculty of Science in Rabat. Years of hard work and research ensue… A work in the shadows without trying to communicate or make themselves known. From the national and international recognition of her career, other people, whom she does not necessarily know, will take care of it.
Thus, in 2015, she was nominated, without knowing it, for the UNESCO Fellowship and the L’Oréal Group Foundation “For Women In Science”, just as she was designated a life member of the Academy of Sciences of the Morocco. Later, she became a member of the African Academy of Sciences. A member of selection committees and experts from national and foreign scientific and academic organizations, she has been, since 2021, in the top 50 of the Alper-Dodger scientific index. And she was recently awarded the TWAS medal (Third Word Academy Of Sciences) and is now one of the 200 most influential scientists in the world.
During her career, she has supervised 27 master’s students and 20 doctoral students with whom she shares her passion for research and transmits the values of “commitment, perseverance and diligence”. An accomplished researcher and teacher, Rajaa Cherkaoui is also a fulfilled wife, mother and grandmother. “My husband, whom I met in France, has always supported me in my work and encouraged me to continue when I sometimes wanted to throw in the towel”, confides this mother who has supported her two daughters and her son in their studies and their professional choices. “I don’t interfere in their decisions but I encourage them to give the best of themselves”, says the one who, as a good teacher, has transposed this same plan with her students whom she has always motivated so that they go ahead. As for her, her journey continues while preparing for her retirement…
PROFILE
Committed to research. With her baccalaureate in hand, she enrolled at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble to study physics. She obtained her master’s degree, her DEA and a doctorate in nuclear physics. Back home, she landed a teaching position at the University of Rabat and also became director of the nuclear physics laboratory.
