famous egyptians(part5)

Ahmed Zewail
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أحمد حسن زويل
Ahmad Hasan Zewail


Zewail [left] at Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, 2000
Born February 26, 1946 (1946-02-26) (age 62)
Damanhour, Egypt
Nationality Egyptian
Fields Chemistry, physics
Known for Femtochemistry
Notable awards Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1999)
Ahmad Hasan Zewail (Arabic: أحمد حسن زويل‎) (born February 26, 1946 in Damanhour, Egypt) is an Egyptian American scientist, and the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry.




Contents [hide]
1 Birth and education
2 Academic career
3 Research
4 Publications
5 External links



[edit] Birth and education
Ahmad Zewail was born on February 26, 1946 in Damanhour (60km south-east of Alexandria) and raised in Disuq. He received bachelor's degree and MS degree from the University of Alexandria before moving from Egypt to the United States to complete his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania with advisor Dr.Robin Hochstrasser. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.


[edit] Academic career
After some post doctorate work at UC-Berkeley, he was awarded a faculty appointment at Caltech in 1976, where he has remained since. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1982, and in 1990, he was made the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics.


[edit] Research
Zewail's key work has been as the pioneer of femtochemistry—i.e. the study of chemical reactions across femtoseconds. Using a rapid ultrafast 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 Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat (1978 in Peace) and Naguib Mahfooz (1988 in Literature). Other international awards include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1993) awarded to him by the Wolf Foundation, and the Robert A. Welch Award (1997). 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. 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.