Ahmed Zewail

Ahmed Zewail was an Egyptian-American chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999 for his pioneering work on femtochemistry, the study of chemical reactions across femtoseconds. He was the first Egyptian and Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field, and the second African to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was also a professor of chemistry and physics at the California Institute of Technology, and a member of President Barack Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He made significant contributions to the fields of physical chemistry, molecular biology, nanotechnology, and laser science. He was widely regarded as one of the most influential and respected scientists of his generation. He was also a passionate advocate for science education and development in Egypt and the Arab world. He authored more than 600 scientific papers and 16 books, and received numerous awards and honors, including the Order of the Nile, the Wolf Prize, the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, and the Priestley Medal. He died of cancer on August 2, 2016, at the age of 70.