Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American scientist, Died at 70

  Reseacher

Ahmed Hassan Zewail was born on February 26, 1946, and died on August 2, 2016.

He was an Egyptian-American scientist.

He was known as the “father of femtochemistry”.

Ahmed won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field.

Zewail was the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics, and the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology.

When he had completed his PhD, Zewail did postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Charles Bonner Harris.

After this, he was awarded a faculty appointment at the California Institute of Technology in 1976, where he has remained since 1990, he was made the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics.

During 1982, Zewail became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Ahmed Hassan Zewail had been nominated and participated in President Barack Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers to advise the President and Vice President and formulate policy in the areas of science, technology, and innovation.

His key work has been as a pioneer of femtochemistry.

During 1999, he became the third Egyptian national to receive the Nobel Prize.

He gave his Nobel Lecture on “Femtochemistry: Atomic-Scale Dynamics of the Chemical Bond Using Ultrafast Lasers”.

Ahmed also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2002.

Zewail prize was following Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat (1978 in Peace), Naguib Mahfouz (1988 in Literature).

He was married, and had four children: Maha, Amani, Nabeel, and Hani.

Ahmed Hassan Zewail passed away at 70 years old.