Ismail Serageldin (born 1944 in Giza, Egypt) is the director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He also chairs the Boards of Directors for each of the BA's affiliated research institutes and museums. He was Vice President of the World Bank, and was Professor at the Collège de France, Paris, and a Distinguished Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He was a member of the Senate in Egypt (Majlis Al-Shura).He received Public Service Medal in 2011 for outstanding leadership in promoting the use of science for sustainable development and for liberating minds from the tyranny of intolerance, bigotry, and fear, thereby opening doors to free inquiry, tolerance, and imagination.