Former ASU assistant professor wins Nobel Prize for chemistry
A former ASU assistant professor won a Nobel Prize for chemistry along with two other groundbreaking scientists on Wednesday.
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PHOENIX – A former assistant professor at Arizona State University won a Nobel Prize for chemistry along with two other groundbreaking scientists on Wednesday.
Omar M. Yaghi, 60, is now affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, but he was an ASU assistant professor from 1992 to ’98, when he started the work that led to his prestigious award.
“My parents could barely read or write. It’s been quite a journey, science allows you to do it.”
New laureate Omar Yaghi was in the middle of changing flights when we reached him, just after he heard that he had been awarded the 2025 #NobelPrize in Chemistry.
In this interview… pic.twitter.com/pTlHPdX4st
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2025
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Yaghi, Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University in Japan and Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne in Australia for developing metal–organic frameworks, a new form of molecular architecture.
The Nobel Prize for chemistry comes with an award of about $1.16 million to be split equally among the recipients.
“It’s the first time a Nobel Prize in chemistry has been bestowed for discoveries made in part in Arizona, for truly breakthrough work first performed right here in the labs at ASU,” ASU President Michael Crow said in a press release. “This Nobel Prize honor marks an historic, international scientific day of achievement, recognition and pride for ASU.”
How did former ASU assistant professor learn he won Nobel Prize?
Yaghi learned that he had won while traveling from San Francisco to Brussels. As he grabbed his luggage and prepared to change flights in Frankfurt, his phone started buzzing with a call from Sweden.
“You cannot prepare for a moment like that,” he said at a news conference. ”The feeling is indescribable, but it’s absolutely thrilling.”
The former ASU assistant professor was born in Jordan, where his parents were refugees from Palestine.
“My father finished sixth grade and my mother couldn’t read or write. It’s quite a journey,” he said in an interview with the Nobel Prize website. “Science allows you to do it. Science is the greatest equalizing force in the world.”
Why was former ASU assistant professor awarded a Nobel Prize?
The Nobel Prize-winning chemists worked separately but added to each other’s breakthroughs over decades, beginning with Robson’s work in the 1980s.
The scientists devised new molecular structures that can trap vast quantities of gas inside, laying the groundwork to potentially suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere or harvest moisture from desert environments.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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“Science allows you to do it. Science is the greatest equalizing force in the world.” ASU should have done more to keep him.
As far as carbon capture, I applaud the discovery, however, Capturing CO₂ is only half the battle. Storing it underground or converting it into products adds complexity and cost. Storage companies bear more risk but get less reward, making the full carbon removal chain unattractive to traditional investors. Even the most efficient systems need hundreds to thousands of kilowatt-hours per ton of CO₂ removed. This makes scaling up prohibitively expensive without subsidies or cheap renewable energy.