Ahmed H. Zewail life and biography

Egyptian-American chemist Ahmed H. Zewail developed a new way of using ultra-short pulsing laser flashes to observe and isolate chemical reactions down to the femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second). His pioneering methodology, called femtochemistry, has revealed previously unknown aspects of the transition states of chemical reactions, and brought Zewail the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999. He has also studied 4D electron microscopy.

In 1999, Zewail became the third ethnic Egyptian to receive the Nobel Prize, following Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat (1978 in Peace), Naguib Mahfouz (1988 in Literature). Mohamed ElBaradei followed him (2005 in peace). Other international awards include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1993) awarded to him by the Wolf Foundation, the Tolman Medal (1997), the Robert A. Welch Award (1997), and the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society in 2011. In 1999, he received Egypt's highest state honor, the Grand Collar of the Nile.

Zewail was awarded a PHD Honoris Causa by Lund University in Sweden in May 2003 and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Cambridge University awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Science in 2006. In May 2008, Zewail received a PhD Honoris Causa from Complutense University of Madrid. In February, 2009, Zewail was awarded an honorary PhD in arts and sciences by the University of Jordan. In May 2010, he received a PhD Honoris Causa in Humane Letters from Southwestern University.

Zewail is married, and has four children.

Awards and honors:

ACS Buck-Whitney Medal 1985
Guggenheim Fellowship 1987
ACS Harrison Howe Award 1989
King Faisal International Prize in Science 1989
APS Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy 1993
Wolf Prize in Chemistry 1993
APS Herbert P. Broida Prize 1995
Egyptian Order of Merit 1995
ACS John Gamble Kirkwood Medal 1996
Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry 1996
ACS Linus Pauling Medal 1997
Welch Award in Chemistry 1997
Benjamin Franklin Medal 1998 (Franklin Institute)
E. O. Lawrence Award 1998
ACS Richard Tolman Medal 1998
ACS William H. Nichols Medal 1998
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1999
Order of the Grand Collar of the Nile 1999
Lebanon Order of Cedar 2000
UAE Order of Zayed 2000
ACS Gennady Michael Kosolapoff Award 2002
WCC Albert Einstein World Award of Science 2006
CHF Othmer Gold Medal 2009
Priestley Medal 2011
Royal Dutch Shell Undergraduate Trainee (1966)
Academy of Achievement 2000
Academy of Sciences for the Developing World 1989
African Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 2002
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, 1978-82
American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1993
American Association for the Advancement of Science 2000
American Chemical Society 2010
American Philosophical Society 1998
American Physical Society 1982
Chinese Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 2009
European Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities 1994
French Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 2005
Indian Chemical Society Foreign Member, 2001
Indian National Science Academy Foreign Member, 2002
Korean Academy of Science and Technology Foreign Member, 2002
National Academy of Sciences 1989
National Science Foundation Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, 1996-2007
Pontifical Academy of Sciences 2000
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters Foreign Member, 2000
Royal Society Foreign Member, 2001
Royal Society of Chemistry Foreign Member, 2003
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 2003
Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 2003
Science Debate 2008
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society 1992

Read more