Omar Yaghi

Some Lesser Known Facts About Omar Yaghi

• Omar Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to a Palestinian refugee family that left Gaza during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.

• Yaghi grew up in a large family of nine siblings, all living in a single room. Their home had no supply of clean water and electricity. In an interview, Omar shared that,

I grew up in a very humble home and we were a dozen of us in one small room, sharing it with the cattle that we used to raise. So yes. And I was born in a family of refugees and my parents barely could read or write. I think my father finished sixth grade and my mother couldn’t read and write.”

• His father ran a butcher shop in Amman and also raised cattle.

• In an interview, Omar Yaghi mentioned that, being good in studies, his father wanted him to pursue a good education, and encouraged him to go to the US to study.

• Before graduating from high school at the age of 15, he got a US visa and moved alone to Troy, New York, to pursue his college education.

• Although he knew little English, Yaghi took courses in English, Math, and Science at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.

• Later, from Hudson Valley College, he was transferred to the State University of New York at Albany, where he completed his undergraduate degree.

• During that time, to support himself financially, Yaghi worked at a grocery store and in floor cleaning.

• In 1990, Omar pursued his PhD degree under the guidance of Walter G. Klemperer.

• From 1990-1992, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

• In the early 1990s, Omar first proposed the concept of reticular chemistry. At that time, the scientific community considered this idea unfeasible. In 1995, Yaghi successfully developed a new class of materials known as metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), in which materials are created in the form of large frameworks containing many molecules. This was also considered the birth of reticular chemistry.

• In 1992, Omar Yaghi started his professional academic career as an assistant professor at Arizona State University.

• From 1999 to 2006, he served as a professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan.

• Later in 2007, he joined the Christopher S. Foote Professorship of Chemistry and the Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences (both are prestigious endowed chairs) at the University of California, Los Angeles.

• In 2012, Omar joined the University of California, Berkeley, as the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry.

• From 2012 to 2013, he served as the director of the Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley.

• At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he was the Founding Director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, which promoted science without borders, encouraging young scholars worldwide. Later, Berkeley Global Science Institute established its research centers in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Argentina, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

• He was the co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute, a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

• He also co-directs the California Research Alliance by BASF and the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet.

• Omar Yaghi is considered the developer of reticular chemistry. Reticular chemistry is a field that is required in assembling molecular building blocks into open, crystalline frameworks using strong bonds.

• In 2005, Omar Yaghi published the seminal paper on covalent organic frameworks (COFs), which was the first series of 2D COFs.

• Yaghi also developed the design and production of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs).

• According to the Thomson Reuters Corporation analysis, Yaghi was the world’s second-most-cited chemist between 2000 to 2010.

• In 2020, Omar Yaghi founded Atoco, a California-based startup, Atoco, focused on commercializing his advancements in MOF and COF technologies for carbon capture and atmospheric water harvesting.

• In 2021, he co-founded another startup named H2MOF, which included his discoveries in reticular chemistry in hydrogen storage.

• In 2022, Yaghi and his team conducted an MOF in Death Valley, California, and discovered that 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of the MOF could extract between 114 to 210 grams (4–7.4 ounces) of water per day from the dry air.

• In an interview, Omar mentioned that throughout his career, he has published over 300 scientific papers, and his work has been cited more than 250,000 times.

• He is an elected member of various science organisations, such as the US National Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and several global scientific academies across Asia and the Middle East.

• In January 2025, he became the seventh president of an international organization promoting cultural and scientific advancement named the World Cultural Council, Mexico.

• In May 2025, the University of California Board of Regents promoted Omar Yaghi to the rank of University Professor, which is the highest honor for scholars of the highest international distinction.

• In October 2025, Yaghi was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of metal-organic frameworks. He shared the award with Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Japan.

  

• Omar Yaghi holds three citizenships: Jordanian by birth, American by his long-term academic career, and in 2021, he was granted Saudi citizenship by the Arab royal decree.