Ahmed Zewail: A force for Egyptian science.

Undoubtedly, Dr. Ahmed Zewail, who passed away on August 2, 2016, had a strong, positive impact on science in the Middle East and in the West. I knew Zewail as one of his mentors and close friends. Zewail wanted to come from Egypt (Alexandria University) to get his PhD in my group at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Unfortunately, I was away on sabbatical and thus did not see his letter of interest, and my secretary answered him, advising him to apply for admission to get his PhD at UCLA first and then to come talk to me when I returned from overseas. He came to the United States and received his PhD working with the late Professor Robin Hochstrasser at the University of Pennsylvania and was doing research in chemical physics, which was very close to my own research at that time. We became very close friends, and he always used me as a sounding board during the successful rise of his academic career. He was very bright, highly motivated, and very hard-working, and he had an excellent sense of humor. Because Hochstrasser and I overlapped greatly in our scientific research interests for a long period, it was natural that Zewail and I frequently attended the same national and international meetings. We often shared accommodations, discussing Egyptian politics and exchanging Egyptian jokes. I wrote letters of recommendation for Zewail when he was searching for a postdoctoral position (he joined the group of my good friend Professor Charles Harris at the University of California, Berkeley) as well as when he was applying for a faculty position at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech). Because he taught at Cal Tech in Pasadena and I was then teaching at UCLA, we frequently got together for dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant located midway between the two institutions. We exchanged findings in our scientific research, discussed the political picture in Egypt, and updated each other on our growing family members. It was always fun to meet Zewail at international and national meetings. We would talk about science, but also about what was happening in Egypt. The differences between research in Egypt and the United States were always an important topic. It was clear that the lack of government funding of research in Egypt was a large factor. It was President Sadat who encouraged Egyptian-born researchers living abroad to return to Egypt to visit their families and to be allowed to return to their US or European place of work. Zewail and I were among the many US and European researchers to make use of President Sadat’s open policy to visit and interact with Egyptians in research institutes and universities. Egyptian researchers became active in organizing international meetings held in Egypt discussing modern research topics. Zewail, Farouk El Baz, other Egyptian-born scientists, and I were on a committee that advised the Egyptian government to make funds available for Egyptians who proposed to do research or to visit research-active universities and centers abroad for several months at a time to enhance their own research interests. We became advisors to the new Ministry of Research to assist in encouraging the many good researchers in Egypt to apply to go abroad or to receive funds for their own research. This program is still in operation, covering proposals involving joint research between Egyptian and American scientists. Ahmed Zewail. Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology.