AHMED ZEWAIL.
Ahmed Hassan Zewail (Arabic: أحمد زويل) (born February 26, 1946)
is an Egyptian American chemist, and the winner of the 1999 Nobel
Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry. Born in Damanhur
(60 km south-east of Alexandria) and raised in Disuq, he received
his first degrees from the University of Alexandria before moving
from Egypt to the United States to complete his PhD at the
University of Pennsylvania. After some post doctorate work at the
University of California, 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.
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 at the atomic
level.