Today (Feb. 26) marks the birth anniversary of the renowned Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail. He made significant contributions to the field of science, including the development of femtosecond and laser technology, that have secured his place in scientific history.
Zewail also made noteworthy contributions to the field of physical biology by creating innovative methods to understand biological systems by visualizing them in the four dimensions of space and time.
Born in Damanhur, Egypt, on February 26, 1946, Zewail grew up in Alexandria and earned his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Alexandria. Later, he pursued a Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania before becoming a teacher assistant at the University of California, Berkeley. Eventually, he moved to the California Institute of Technology in 1976.
Zewail became a professor of chemical physics in the 1980s and was appointed Linus Pauling professor of chemistry and professor of physics in 1995, where he held these positions until his passing. He married Dr. Dema Faham in 1989 and had four children.
In 1991, Zewail captivated members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with his account of his laser femtochemistry work. He went on to become the first Egyptian and Arab scientist to receive a science Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the 1990s, where he delivered his Nobel Lecture on "Femtochemistry: Atomic-Scale Dynamics of the Chemical Bond Using Ultrafast Lasers."
Between 1996 and 2007, Ahmed Zewail served as the official director of the National Science Foundation's laboratory for molecular sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). From 2005, he also directed the Center for Physical Biology at Caltech.
Zewail received numerous awards and honorary doctorates from 46 universities, including both Oxford and Cambridge. He also received the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in October 2006. Zewail was a foreign member of the Royal Society and most other national academies.
He played a significant role in the L’Oréal/UNESCO prize for women in science for several years.
In 2009, US President Barack Obama appointed Zewail to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. That same year, he became the first US science envoy to the Middle East. In 2013, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, invited Zewail to join the UN Scientific Advisory Board.
Zewail was deeply committed to improving education opportunities for economically disadvantaged people, particularly children who receive no education in various parts of the world. He worked tirelessly to establish centers of excellence in the Arab world, particularly in his native Egypt.
In 2000, he initiated the creation of Zewail City of Science and Technology in 6th October city, which was completed in 2011.
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