17 February 2010

Science Envoy Ahmed Zewail

Professor of chemical physics, physics, California Institute of Technology

Science envoy Ahmed Zewail

Ahmed Zewail is the Linus Pauling professor of chemical physics and a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at Caltech, and served as director of Caltech’s Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, which operated from 1996 to 2006 with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

In 1999, Zewail received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his pioneering work in femtoscience (one femtosecond is 0.000000000000001 seconds, which is to a second as a second is to 32 million years), making it possible to observe atoms in motion and the transition states of molecular transformations.

Zewail is participating in President Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which discusses issues in education, science, defense, energy, the economy and technology.