VCU news

The 1999 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Ahmed H. Zewail, Ph.D., of the California Institute of Technology, will give the keynote address at Virginia Commonwealth University’s International Symposium on Cluster and Nanostructure Interfaces. This will be Zewail’s first public address since the Oct. 12 announcement that he won the prize for his groundbreaking discovery of femtochemistry, which has given the world its ultimate snapshot into fundamental chemical reactions.

The VCU-sponsored conference will be held Oct. 25-28 at the Omni Richmond Hotel, 100 S. 12^th St. The Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics at Caltech, Zewail will speak about "Femtodynamics with Atomic Scale Resolution" at 9:15 a.m. Oct. 25.

"We knew that he was going to win the Nobel Prize one of these years, but we didn’t know that it would be this year," said Puru Jena, Ph.D., VCU professor of physics and conference chair. "This is extremely fortunate for the scholars who will be attending this conference."

With support from VCU chemists, Jena invited Zewail more than a year ago to deliver the keynote address. It is rare for conferences to feature scientists within weeks of receiving an honor such as the Nobel Prize. This year’s conference highlights how structures are built atom by atom, and Zewail’s research represents the last frontier in the field, Jena said.

In announcing the award, the Royal Swedish Academy recognized Zewail "for showing that it is possible with rapid laser technique to see how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction" – a process now known as femtochemistry. Building on 20 years of research that has drawn in about 150 post-doctoral research fellows, graduate students and visiting associates, Zewail has developed lasers that have allowed scientists a step-by-step study of reactions that occur in a millionth of a billionth of a second.

Zewail’s unprecedented "snapshot" of chemical reactions has opened up new ways to investigate how particles both unite and break apart. His work is expected to have broad impact, from the development of new medicines to the creation of faster electronics. "If you can understand the landscape of a chemical change or a biological change, you might be able to alter the landscape," the scientist told the Associated Press.

Zeweil’s other international honors include the Welch Prize, the Leonardo da Vinci Award of Excellence and the Medal of the Royal Academy of Arts and Science. National accolades for Zewail include numerous honors from the American Chemical Society, as well as the Earle K. Plyler Prize and the Herbert P. Broida Prize from the American Physical Society.

His professional affiliations include membership in the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Third World Academy of Science; and the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities. A native of Egypt, Zewail has been acclaimed as a scientific hero in his native country, which last year issued a series of postage stamps in his honor.

For more information on the conference, call (804) 828-1818.