he United Nations has appointed Earth’s ambassador should aliens touch down in the near future. Their selection? Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman, who heads the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs. Othman gave recently to fellow scientists, she said: “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials […] When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.” Professor Richard Crowther, an expert in space law and governance at the UK Space Agency and who leads British delegations to the UN on such matters, said: “Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a ‘take me to your leader’ person.” Congratulations to Dr. Othman on representing the whole of the human race should aliens decide to park in our backyard. Born in Seremban, Malaysia, Othman attended Tunku Kurshiah College, a boarding school in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. Her aptitude for mathematics led to enrollment in a science curriculum, and though her family encouraged her to become a physician, she decided to pursue physics instead. She attended University of Otago in New Zealand on a Colombo plan scholarship, earning a BSc. (honors) in 1975. She 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.
