Omar M. Yaghi

I genuinely find Omar Yaghi one of the most quietly revolutionary scientists alive. Growing up in Amman and making his way to the University of Illinois, then building a career at UC Berkeley — that arc alone is remarkable. But what really gets me is what he actually built: metal-organic frameworks, these almost impossibly elegant porous structures that can capture gases, store hydrogen, and — this is the part that stops me cold — pull water straight out of desert air. The man invented a new branch of chemistry, reticular chemistry, basically from scratch. He stacked up a Wolf Prize, an Albert Einstein World Award of Science, a King Faisal Prize, and more, and the scientific community has been whispering "Nobel" for years. The symmetry of a scientist from a dry, arid region spending his career figuring out how to harvest water from thin air feels less like coincidence and more like destiny.

Name (English)

Omar M. Yaghi

Name (Japanese)

オマー・ヤギー

Reading

おまー・やぎー

Born

February 9, 1965 (age 61)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Snake

Origin

Amman, Amman Governorate, Jordan

Occupation

chemist / university teacher

University

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Awards & achievements

• 2015 King Faisal International Prize in Science
• 2010 Centenary Prize
• 2017 Albert Einstein World Award of Science
• 2017 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award
• 2007 MRS Medal Award
• 2019 Gregori Aminoff Prize
• 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry
• 2015 Mustafa Prize

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://yaghi.berkeley.edu/bio.html
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AA%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A4%E3%82%AE%E3%83%BC

Tags

• Amman Governorate
• chemist
• university teacher

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.