The father of femtochemistry, the area of physical chemistry involved with chemical reactions on extremely short timescales. He became the first Egyptian scientist to win the Nobel Prize in a scientific field when he won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He was a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology from 1976 to 1990.
He won the Priestley Medal and Davy Medal in 2011, which are both prestigious chemistry awards.
He married physician Dema Faham in 1989 and the couple had four children together: Maha, Amani, Nabeel and Hani.
He won the Davy Medal in 2011, which was named after Chemist Humphry Davy.
