Abdul Qadeer Khan, NI, HI, FPAS (; b. 1 April 1936), and known widely as A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a metallurgical engineer, and the founder of the uranium enrichment program for Pakistan's atomic bomb project. Khan founded and established the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, serving as both its senior scientist and Director-General until his retirement in 2001. Khan was also an early and vital figure in other Pakistani national science projects, making major contributions in research on molecular morphology, the physics of martensite alloys, condensed matter physics and materials physics.