Ahmed Hassan Zewail is an Egyptian scientist, known as the "father of femtochemistry", he won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Arab scientist to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field. He is the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics, and the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology. Chemist Ahmed H. Zewail was born February 26, 1946, Damanhur, Egypt. After receiving B.S. (1967) and M.S. (1969) degrees from the University of Alexandria, Zewail attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a doctorate in 1974. Two years later he joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology and in 1990 was selected as the school’s first Linus Pauling professor of chemical physics. Zewail also served as a visiting professor at a number of institutions, including Texas A&M University, the University of Iowa, and American University at Cairo. In 1999 he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing a rapid laser technique that enabled scientists to study the action of atoms during chemical reactions and gain more control over the outcome.

In 1999, Zewail became the third Egyptian national to receive the Nobel Prize. Zewail gave his Nobel Lecture on "Femtochemistry: Atomic-Scale Dynamics of the Chemical Bond Using Ultrafast Lasers". His prize was following Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat (1978 in Peace), Naguib Mahfouz (1988 in Literature). Mohamed ElBaradei followed him (2005 in peace). Other international awards include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1993) awarded to him by the Wolf Foundation, the Tolman Medal (1997), the Robert A. Welch Award (1997), the Othmer Gold Medal in 2009, the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society and Davy Medal from the Royal Society in 2011.