“Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious - but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance. Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.”

Egyptian-American chemist

Ahmed Hassan Zewail was an Egyptian-American chemist, 1946 to 2016, known for his work in femtochemistry and for earning the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is often called the father of femtochemistry. At the California Institute of Technology, he taught chemistry and physics and became the first Caltech faculty member appointed to the Linus Pauling Chair of Chemical Physics. He also directed the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology. His reputation rests on research that opened a new way to study chemical change on extremely short timescales.