Born right into a household of Palestinian refugees in Jordan with little education, Nobel chemistry laureate Omar Yaghi on Wednesday (October 8, 2025) paid tribute to science’s “equalising force”.
Prof. Yaghi, a Jordanian-American, gained the 2025 prize along with Susumu Kitagawa of Japan and U.Ok.-born Richard Robson for his or her groundbreaking discoveries on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), whose makes use of embody capturing carbon dioxide and harvesting water from desert air.
“I grew up in a very humble home. We were a dozen of us in one small room, sharing it with the cattle that we used to raise,” he advised the Nobel Foundation in an interview after studying he had gained the celebrated prize.
Their residence had no electrical energy or operating water. His father had solely completed sixth grade and his mom may neither learn nor write.
Born in 1965, he spent his childhood in Amman, in Jordan, earlier than leaving for the United States on the age of 15, on the recommendation of his stern father.
Prof. Yaghi first found molecular buildings in a guide when he was 10 years previous, after sneaking into the normally locked faculty library.
His eyes have been drawn to the “unintelligible but captivating” pictures.
“It’s quite a journey,” he mused — and one which science enabled him to make, he stated.
“Science is the greatest equalising force in the world,” Prof. Yaghi stated.
“Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere. That’s why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity.”
His analysis group succeeded in extracting water from desert air in Arizona.
“I started at Arizona State University, my independent career and my dream was to publish at least one paper that receives 100 citations,” he recalled.
“Now my students say that our group has garnered over 250,000 citations.”
“The beauty of chemistry is that if you learn how to control matter on the atomic and molecular level, well, the potential is great,” he stated.
“We opened a gold mine in that way and the field grew,” he stated.
