- Ahmed Zewail
Infobox_Scientist
name = Ahmed Hassan Zewail
image_width = 160px
image_height= 232px
caption = Ahmed Hassan Zewail
birth_date = birth date and age|1946|2|26
birth_place =Damanhur ,Egypt
nationality = Egyptian
field =Chemistry ,physics
known_for =Femtochemistry
prizes = nowrap|Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1999)
religion =Islam
website = http://www.its.caltech.edu/~femto/
footnotes =Ahmed Hassan Zewail ( _ar. أحمد حسن زويل) (born
February 26 1946 inDamanhur ,Egypt ) is anEgyptian American scientist, and the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work onfemtochemistry .Birth and education
Ahmed Zewail was born on
February 26 1946 inDamanhur (60 km south-east ofAlexandria ) and raised inDisuq . He received bachelor's degree and MS degree from theUniversity of Alexandria before moving fromEgypt to theUnited States to complete his PhD at theUniversity of Pennsylvania with advisor Dr.Robin Hochstrasser . He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at theUniversity of California, Berkeley .Academic career
After some post doctorate work at
UC-Berkeley , he was awarded a faculty appointment atCaltech in 1976, where he has remained since. He became anaturalized citizen of the United States in 1982, and in 1990, he was made the first "Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics".Research
Zewail's key work has been as the pioneer of
femtochemistry —i.e. the study ofchemical reaction s acrossfemtosecond s. Using a rapidultrafast laser technique (consisting of ultrashort laser flashes), the technique allows the description of reactions on very short time scales - short enough to analyse transition states in selected chemical reactions.In 1999, Zewail became the third ethnic Egyptian to receive the Nobel Prize, following
Anwar Sadat (1978 in Peace) andNaguib Mahfouz (1988 in Literature). Other international awards include theWolf Prize in Chemistry (1993) awarded to him by the State of Israel, and theRobert A. Welch Award (1997). In 1999, he received Egypt's highest state honour, theGrand Collar of the Nile .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 .Zewail is married, and has four children.
Publications
Ahmed Zewail was one of the original editors of the [http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/0470-027312/home Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry]
External links
* [http://www.its.caltech.edu/~femto/ Ahmed Zewail's Caltech website]
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